Which statements about the artworks of Raphael are true?a.They show the influence of Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Classical art.b.They use chiaroscuro to give figures a sense of solid form.c.They show the personalities of people.d.They depict people just as they looked in real life, without ideal beauty.

Answer:

The correct answers are a. They show the influence of Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Classical art; and c. They show the personalities of people.

Explanation:

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (1483-1520, known as Raphael, is considered one of the masters’ triad of the Renaissance, along with Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarotti. His production is considered the Renaissance climax when painting has become the canon, or the model, for what we know as Classical Art.

For many critics, Raphael is considered the balance between Leonardo’s and Michelangelo’s considerations about art.

Besides having a brief life, Raphael’s production was massive. He started very young and rapidly was patronized by two Popes. He studied in Florence, where he absorbed the influences of Leonardo and Michelangelo, moving to Rome afterward.

Raphael’s paintings are considered clean, sober and highly technique skilled. The sfumato, which is the soft contrast between the paint shades, was broadly used by Leonardo and forstered by Raphael. Differently from the chiaroscuro, which is a strong contrast between light and shade, the sfumato changes the tones gradually. And this technique gives to Raphael’s paintings a deep sense of reality, as art was imitating life, which is called “verisimilitude”.

He constantly depicted his masters and other celebrities of that times in his paintings. But they assumed classical features, as they were embodying the classical philosophers, gods, and artists from ancient Rome and Greece. They were Raphael influences and he used to rememorize them as an act of gratitude.

The School of Athens (1509-1511) is a fresco commissioned by the Vatican and located at the Stanza della Segnatura. It’s a huge painting where Raphael has depicted many greek philosophers and their pupils. It has an idealized scenario, as that was a reunion of all classical thinkers and in the center of the picture we have Plato and Aristotle. In fact, Plato was an homage to Leonardo Da Vinci, who’s pointing to the sky where the world of the ideas is localized, next to the gods. Michelangelo is painted as Aristotle, who shows the ideas should be inspired by nature. And this intelligent creation also shows the duality of both artists, who were influenced by those philosophers who they embodied. As the greek thinkers, Leonardo and Michelangelo were the two references of that Renaissance’s period.