“The Importance of Raphael’s Paintings”

 

Raphael was considered to be one of the most important artists to have evolved from the era of the Renaissance. Overall, he is known for changing the way people viewed art and specifically, the visions of the Renaissance paintings and the typical characters involved. Raphael’s techniques focused on concentrating on the smallest of details specifically in the body and face of his characters or portraitists. His style combined subtleties that created greater clarity of form and softer shading to create a more realistic approach, this being the basic notion as to how he supposedly changed the Renaissance art movement. To use more realistic approaches to his paintings was an initial technique that wasnt very considered in the Renaissance art movement at his time and reportedly he used females in particular to showcase a change in more apparent and fluid expressions.

This could be an element of his work that could be useful to define for me to continue my own interpretations of his painting as this could have been a development or a change in the beauty standards of woman – linking to the concept of the previous painting i have showed. But obviously, these standards he may have created were made entirely down to his own opinions of what an ideal female is.

He is typically compared to Michelangelo, another iconic painter of the Renaissance period, for their extreme differences in painting techniques. Although he used Michelangelo’s work as a key inspiration when developing a certain characteristic, he progressed from similar techniques and developed a very original, changing style. A typical trait of Raphael’s paintings would be conveying high energy and dramatic overuse of characters involved. Figures would seem calming and harmonious, but also sometimes very exaggerated through their expression. Considering the previous chosen painting, it is very packed out with various elements and narratives being shown but he harmoniously balances the painting out but careful positioning. So his work may initially seem messy through composition, but after studying the paintings for longer, it is obvious of his careful placement of figures and dream like notions.