Raphael: Drawings & Paintings (Annotated)

Raphael: Drawings & Paintings (Annotated)

Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino) is an Italian artist and architect from the Florentine School. He worked during the High Renaissance, which spans the period from the very end of the 15th century to the first years of the 16th century.Raphael is traditionally considered one of the three great masters of the period, along with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.In the end, Raphael always moved in such a way as to assimilate the best from those within his reach, be it the chromatic richness of a Venetians, the softness of Leonardo or the dynamism of Michelangelo. Admiring and imitating at different times, without ever following the extreme results of other artists' poetics but adapting them to his sensibility, Raphael set himself as a mediating figure, an example for the future and third character in the ideal triad of the great "geniuses" of the Renaissance. Raphael's activity is divided into three stylistically distinct stages, described by Giorgio Vasari: his early years in Umbria, his four years in Florence (1504 - 1508) and his triumphant success in Rome, where he works for two popes and their close associates.Despite his relatively short life, Raphael is very productive, runs an unusually large studio, and leaves behind a huge picturesque heritage.