s under the influence of style in its most fully determined
sense, of what might be called the thorough-bass of the pictorial art,
of a fully realised intellectual system in regard to its processes,
well tested by experiment, upon a survey [49] of all the conditions and
various applications of it--of style as understood by Da Vinci, then at
work in Florence. Raphael's sojourn there extends from his
twenty-first to his twenty-fifth year. He came with flattering
recommendations from the Court of Urbino; was admitted as an equal by
the masters of his craft, being already in demand for work, then and
ever since duly prized; was, in fact, already famous, though he alone
is unaware--is in his own opinion still but a learner, and as a learner
yields himself meekly, systematically to influence; would learn from
Francia, whom he visits at Bologna; from the earlier naturalistic works
of Masolino and Masaccio; from the solemn prophetic work of the
venerable dominican, Bartolommeo, disciple of Savonarola. And he has
already habitually this strange effect, not only on the whole body of
his juniors, but on those whose manner had been long since formed; they
lose something of themselves by contact with him, as if they went to
school again.

Bartolommeo, Da Vinci, were masters certainly of what we call "the
ideal" in art. Yet for Raphael, so loyal hitherto to the traditions of
Umbrian art, to its heavy weight of hieratic tradition, dealing still
somewhat conventionally with a limited, non-natural matter--for Raphael
to come from Siena, Perugia, Urbino, to sharp-witted, practical,
masterful Florence was in immediate effect a transition from reverie to
[50] realities--to a world of facts. Those masters of the ideal were
for him, in the first instance, masters also of realism, as we say.
Henceforth, to the end, he will be the analyst, the faithful reporter,
in his work, of what he sees. He will realise the function of style as
exemplified in the practice of Da Vinci, face to face with the world of
nature and man as they are; selecting from, asserting one's self in a
transcript of its veritable data; like drawing to like there, in
obedience to the master's preference for the embodiment of the creative
form within him. Portrait-art had been nowhere in the school of
Perugino, but it was the triumph of the school of Florence. And here a
faithful analyst of what he sees, yet lifting it withal, unconsciously,
inevitably, recomposing, gl