The School of Athens: A Renaissance Blog Post
The School of Athens painted by Raphael Sanzio da Urbino in 1510.
There is a lot of different types of lines used in this painting. The circular arches, the squares in, what I assume is, a marble floor. Everything is very structured. The lower half of the painting is focused on straight lines; the stairs, the floor, and the supports for the arches. As the painting moves up towards the ceiling, it becomes rounder. Suddenly the structure from the base of the painting becomes wide sweeping arches that open into more areas and give the sense of the painting continuing beyond the wall. It opens the room instead of becoming just a lifeless piece of art.
There is a painstaking amount of detail in this painting in regards to the people who inhabit it and remain true to a lifelike representation of what the human body looks like. The colors used in this painting are blues, purples, greens, reds, oranges, and the occasional white garment. It livens the painting and the people, drawing the viewer's attention to those with the most vibrant colors first and then moving towards the others.
There is a painstaking amount of detail in this painting in regards to the people who inhabit it and remain true to a lifelike representation of what the human body looks like. The colors used in this painting are blues, purples, greens, reds, oranges, and the occasional white garment. It livens the painting and the people, drawing the viewer's attention to those with the most vibrant colors first and then moving towards the others.
My favorite part of paintings like this one is the illusion of the room continuing on and on. I've seen a few paintings that take advantage of this form of art and I always loved them the most. It seems effortless, doesn't it? I look at it and it seems real. A photograph could capture that depth and space that the painter creates without an issue but back then, I can only imagine how difficult that was. The Art of Being Human by Richard Paul Janaro and Thelma C. Altshuler has the following sentiment in it, "Art is the illusion that there is no art." I think that this form of art makes it seem like this is not a painting or something an artist sketched out. It makes it real.
Raphael seems to use the contrast between light and dark to show the separation between the different areas of the painting. This is called chiaroscuro. It is supposed to show us how things really look to us in the real world, so I think it helps urge the belief this is more than a painting or a piece of art.
I think that it embodies the Renaissance ideal of creating art that is lifelike and appears like there is no art. Raphael shows his creativity in the way he sets the scene, his knowledge of art by how he employs the little nuances that make it seem real, and his knowledge of math to show depth and space when there is none. It's not something that just happens by accident.
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