Raphael

by Raphael (Creator)

The Italian Renaissance master Raphael designed a sublime set of 10 tapestries for the Sistine Chapel in 1515. These remarkable works are comparable with Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel Ceiling as masterpieces of High Renaissance art. The full-size designs Raphael made for the tapestries--known as the Raphael Cartoons--have been on display in the V&A since 1865. This book accompanies an exhibition of the four remaining actual tapestries and the Cartoons. It introduces and contextualizes them, looks at how and why they were made, and discusses each subject individually in terms of sources and composition. Accessible and beautiful, it is essential reading for all Raphael and Renaissance enthusiasts.

50 pages, Paperback

Published August 28, 2016

About the author

Raphael Sanzio, usually known by his first name alone (in Italian Raffaello (April 6 or March 28, 1483 – April 6, 1520) was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance, celebrated for the perfection and grace of his paintings and drawings. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.

Raphael was enormously productive and, despite his early death at thirty-seven, a large body of his work remains, especially in the Vatican. He was extremely influential in his lifetime, but after his death the influence of his great rival Michelangelo was more widespread until the 18th and 19th centuries, when his more serene and harmonious qualities were again regarded as the highest models.

His career falls naturally into three phases and three styles, first described by Giorgio Vasari: his early years in Umbria, then a period of about four years (from 1504-1508) absorbing the artistic traditions of Florence, followed by his last hectic and triumphant twelve years in Rome, working for two Popes and their close associates.