THE SISTINE MADONNA

PICTURE FROM PHOTOGRAPH BY FRANZ HANFSTAENGL

XVI. PORTRAIT OF RAPHAEL (_See Frontispiece_)

PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY OF PROPER NAMES AND FOREIGN WORDS

* * * * *

INTRODUCTION

I. ON RAPHAEL'S CHARACTER AS AN ARTIST.

No one of the old Italian masters has taken such a firm hold upon the
popular imagination as Raphael. Other artists wax and wane in public
favor as they are praised by one generation of critics or disparaged
by the next; but Raphael's name continues to stand in public
estimation as that of the favorite painter in Christendom. The passing
centuries do not dim his fame, though he is subjected to severe
criticism; and he continues, as he began, the first love of the
people.

The subjects of his pictures are nearly all of a cheerful nature. He
exercised his skill for the most part on scenes which were agreeable
to contemplate. Pain and ugliness were strangers to his art; he was
preeminently the artist of joy. This is to be referred not only to his
pleasure-loving nature, but to the great influence upon him of the
rediscovery of Greek art in his day, an art which dealt distinctively
with objects of delight.

Moreover Raphael is compassionate towards mind as well as heart; he
requires of us neither too strenuous feeling nor too much thinking. As
his subjects do not overtax the sympathies with harrowing emotions,
neither does his art overtax the understanding with complicated
effects. His pictures are apparently so simple that they demand no
great intellectual effort and no technical education to enjoy them.
He does all the work for us, and his art is too perfect to astonish.
It was not his way to show what difficult things he could do, but he
made it appear that great art is the easiest thing in the world. This
ease was, however, the result of a splendid mastery of his art. Thus
he arranges the fifty-two figures in the School of Athens, or the
three figures of the Madonna of the Chair, so simply and unobtrusively
that we might imagine such feats were an every-day affair. Yet in both
cases he solves most difficult problems of composition with a success
scarcely paralleled in the history of art.

Even the Master himself seldom achieved the same kind of success
twice. His Parnassus lacks the variety of the School of Athens, though
the single figures have a similar grace, and the Incendio del Borgo or
Conflagration in the Borgo, w