Essay - Raphael's Painting 'School of Athens' 1509-11 the School of Athens:...

Raphael's painting "School of Athens" 1509-11

The School ***** Athens: Raphael's triumph of Renaissance humanism and Neo-Platonic thought

One of the great ***** artist Raphael's works for Pope Julius II was not a religious piece ***** art, but a work that mimicked classical antiquity. The ***** painting The School of Athens depicts an idealized vision ***** great, classical Greek philosophers ***** scientists interacting with one another before a symbolic representation of 'Dame Philosophy.' All of the figures represent the people whose work was to provide the intellectual cornerstone for so much of the Renaissance's great scientific and artistic innovations. Interestingly, Raphael left no notes about the painting as to the identity of ***** various philo*****phers depicted, suggesting that it was assumed ***** his audience would know who they were. 16th century commentator and biographer Giorgio Vasari said that nearly every Greek philosopher and ancient scientist ***** note can be found in the painting if one looks closely enough (Bell 1995). The painting was seen as a ***** both of symbolism *****nd shows substantial innovations in making a crowd scene comprehensible, dynamic, ideal and yet palpably human.

But subsequent students have ***** ***** *****ations more opaque in their identities and ***** open to interpretation. They point out that when Raphael crated the *****, there was no established ***** convention for what these individuals looked like—after all, these were the days before pho*****graphy, and the great philosophers, unlike the gods, were seldom subjects of great art. Finding out the identity of the figures may ***** been part of ***** intentional visual delight or 'puzzle' ***** the *****. Out of necessity, Raphael had to use his imagination to create images out of whole cloth, and to his credit many of the images are so indelible *****y have become fixed in the cultural consciousness, fodder for everything from ***** art to parodies advertisements. We assume Plato looks like Raphael's Plato, even though we have no clues from Plato's own era to suggest ***** Plato actually looked like. The work is sublimely concrete as well as idealized in terms of ***** indelible images it creates—the work ***** meant to be a visu*****lization of *****ledge, a merging *****gether of ***** ***** philosophy across time, anachronistically bringing together philosophers from across the ages so Raphael's art could be in dialogue ***** ancient *****. Sixty-six philosophers make up the work, and, signifi*****tly ***** terms of the ***** emphasis on the *****, *****y are more predominant than the symbolic and ***** representation of ***** Philosophy' on the throne be*****e them (Most 1996, 155). Although she is seated on high, ***** looks more s*****owy compared to the vivid ***** scene, with its dynamic int*****ctions below her.

Some figures are easier ***** identify ***** others. *****, for example, holds a copy of one of ***** most famous *****, the dialogue Timaeus. He is shown pointing upwards, probably in reference to h***** philosophy's stress on ***** ethereal world of heavenly, pure *****ms. Raphael chose to honor Leonardo da Vinci by using the