Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Raphael

Raphael Sanzio, known as Raphael, was a master painter during the Renaissance. Like Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael had many interests other than painting. He studied archaeology, poetry, history, and architecture. This post will focus mostly on his art.

Raphael was born in Urbino, Italy in 1483. His mother died when he was only 8 years old. His father was talented and taught Raphael a great deal about art. Saddly, he died only three years after Raphael’s mother.

Raphael lived with his uncle for awhile and then with his stepmother. Soon he became the apprentice to Pietro Perugino. Raphael was a fully trained master in 1501.

When he was 21 years old, Raphael moved to Florence. In Florence, he met Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. He studied the work of many masters and improved his own art. At the age of 26, Raphael was considered one of the most important painters in Italy. At the time, Florence was the center of the art world.
Raphael painted portraits of many famous and wealthy people. The one shown above is Portrait of Bindo Altoviti.
When Raphael was not painting portraits, he painted group scenes like the one shown above, School of Athens. He created many of these paintings for the Vatican in Rome. (This painting was completed on a wall in the Vatican City.) In group scenes, Raphael often used people he knew as models. Another example of a group scene is The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, shown below.
He died in 1520, leaving a large number of paintings, many of which were at the Vatican.

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2 comments:

Xabrinna Z. said...

wow thank you for such a great bio :) im using this for homework
do u know any other site like this because i need 2 sources for a paper i have to do. thx :) love your site!!!

Xabrinna Z. said...

do you know exactly when he died? like month and day? pls answer thx :)