Sistine Madonna. Nine characters encrypted in the "Sistine Madonna" by Raphael santi photograph of the painting "Sistine Madonna"

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« Sistine Madonna"- the most famous of the paintings by Rafael Santi, which has no creative analogues. About the history of the creation of the "Sistine Madonna", the first mention of the "Sistine Madonna", about original name Read the masterpiece of artistic classics in our article.

"This the whole world, fabulous, colorful world art. This picture alone would be more than enough to make the name of the author, if he had not created anything else, immortal.

Goethe on the "Sistine Madonna"

The highest creative rise of Raphael continued until the middle of 1510, and during this period the creation of the "Sistine Madonna" - the most famous of the artist's paintings - falls.

"Sistine Madonna", Raphael Santi

At one time, this painting was considered the most famous in the world, not only because of its beauty, but also because the Polish-Saxon king Frederick AugustIIISaxony bought it in 1574 from the church of St. Sixtus in Piacenza for a huge amount of money. From the name of the church, the picture got its new, now known to everyone, name - “Sistine Madonna”, and initially it was called “Madonna and Child, with St. Sixtus and St. Barbara”. The church of St. Sixtus kept relics associated with these saints. Relics are extremely important to the church because they produce the desired effect. Pope JuliusII, while still a cardinal, he collected donations for the construction of a chapel in the church for the relics of St. Sixtus and St. Barbara.

Church of St. Sixtus, Piacenza

There is no documentary evidence of the creation of the "Sistine Madonna" and why she ended up in the monastery of St. Sixtus in Piacenza. For the first time the picture is mentioned in the "Biographies of the most famous painters, sculptors and architects" by Vasari only in 1550. According to Vasari: “He (Raphael) performed for the black monks (monastery) of St. Sixtus the board (image) of the main altar with the appearance of Our Lady to St. Sixtus and St. Barbara; creation is unique and unique. Vasari's statement that the altarpiece was executed on a board indicates that he himself did not see the "Sistine Madonna", because the picture was painted on canvas. Vasari's error has a simple explanation: at the beginningXVIcenturies, altar images were usually performed on the board. The huge Sistine Madonna (256x196 cm) is painted on canvas. It is quite possible that the choice of material depended on the large dimensions of the painting. But this can also be interpreted as a hint that the picture was conceived as an element of the banner.

The banner is a religious banner in the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches. It is a panel on a staff with the image of Jesus Christ, the Mother of God or saints. Church banners were intended for religious processions.

The dating of the creation of the painting is stretched in time - from 1512 to 1519, and is still controversial. Most researchers consider the most probable date for its execution to be 1512-1514.

All italian culture originates from the monasteries. A monastery is a religious community of monks or nuns, which has a single charter and a single complex of liturgical, residential and outbuildings. The birthplace of monasticism is Egypt, famous for its desert fathers.IV- Vcenturies. The Monk Pachomius the Great founded the first cenobitic monastery and wrote the first monastic charter in 318. Monasteries were not only engaged in religion, they were centers of knowledge since the dark Middle Ages. Each monastery had a library and a place where scriptorium books were copied, and their Team work launched a chain of events favorable for the development of culture. Some monasteries, such as the first Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino (founded in 529), were truly medieval. scientific centers. The monks were engaged in research in various fields of philosophy, medicine and music. The first schools were opened at monasteries. Novices of monasteries often became popes: Pope Leo X, the patron of Raphael, was a novice of the monastery of Monte Cassino, 100 km from Rome. The monasteries gave shelter frail old people and sick and were a place where one could hide from the worldly environment, from the chaos and violence reigning in the world. Influenced by the teachings of Savonarolla, Leonardo da Vinci in 1491 went to a Dominican monastery near Pisa for some time. The elder brother Michelangelo, who was tonsured a monk in Viterbo, and the artist della Porta, who received the name of Fra Bartolomeo after becoming a monk, became adherents of the ideas of Savonarola's "demagogue on religious grounds".

St. Sixtus Monastery, one of the oldest monasteries, was founded by Queen Engilberga in 874. And like any monastery, he lived autonomously, strictly guarding his secrets. We must not forget that these were difficult times: Italy lived in a state of incessant wars that destroyed people and the very spirit of civilization. The terrible reality of these wars was not just catastrophic, sometimes simply irreparable losses: during the Italian campaign of Napoleon, the archive of the monastery of St. Sixtus burned down. Unfortunately, no preparatory drawings or sketches of the Sistine Madonna have survived. And since the source historical information missing, customer name beautiful picture is still not known.

The German researcher M. Putcher and his followers are convinced that Raphael painted the "Sistine Madonna" for the church of St. Sixtus, and the painting remained in this church until it was taken to Dresden. According to his version, Pope Julius donated the "Sistine Madonna" to the church of St. Sixtus in gratitude for the contribution made by Piacenza (the monks of the monastery actively campaigned for joining Rome), during the war with France. At firstXVIcentury, the northern lands of Italy became the subject and place of the clash of the selfish interests of Rome and France. The papal armies coped so well with the bloody task of conquering the northern regions that one by one the northern Italian cities went over to the side of the Roman pontiff. On June 24, 1512, Piacenza also voluntarily joined Rome, entering the state of the pope and receiving the status of the Papal States.

JuliaII, whose political ambitions went hand in hand with religious zeal, had a special relationship with Piacenza. This small town, 60 km from Milan, reminded Pope Julius of his relationship with Pope SixtusIV, his uncle. In addition, in the city there was the Cathedral of St. Sixtus - the patron saint of the della Rovere family, to which Pope Julius belonged. During his stay in Piacenza in June 1500, while still a cardinal, Pope JuliusIIgranted the monks of the monastery the remission of sins for the charitable work of building a church. The Church of St. Sixtus, badly damaged during the war and restored by the famous architect Alessio Tramallo in 1499-1511, was reopened after reconstruction with a new image behind the altar - Raphael's masterpiece "The Sistine Madonna".

Interior of the Church of St. Sixtus

Raphael, "Sistine Madonna." Dresden Gallery. 1512-1513

The predominant nature of the genius of Raphael was expressed in the desire for a deity, for the transformation of the earthly, human into the eternal, divine. It seems that the curtain has just parted and a heavenly vision has opened up to the eyes of believers - the Virgin Mary walking on a cloud with baby Jesus in her arms.

The Madonna is holding trustingly clinging to her Jesus in a motherly way, carefully and carefully. The genius of Raphael seemed to have enclosed the divine baby in a magic circle formed by the left hand of the Madonna, her falling veil and right hand Jesus.

Her gaze, directed through the viewer, is full of disturbing foresight. tragic fate son. The Madonna's face is the embodiment of the ancient ideal of beauty combined with the spirituality of the Christian ideal. Pope Sixtus II, who accepted martyrdom in 258 AD and numbered among the saints, asks Mary for intercession for all who pray to her in front of the altar.

The pose of Saint Barbara, her face and downcast eyes express humility and reverence. In the depths of the picture, in the background, barely distinguishable in a golden haze, the faces of angels are vaguely guessed, enhancing the overall sublime atmosphere.

This is one of the first works in which the viewer is invisibly included in the composition: it seems that the Madonna descends from heaven directly towards the viewer and looks into his eyes.

The image of Mary harmoniously combines the delight of religious triumph (the artist returns to the hieratic composition of the Byzantine Hodegetria) with such universal human experiences as deep maternal tenderness and individual notes of anxiety for the fate of the baby. Her clothes are emphatically simple, she steps on the clouds with bare feet, surrounded by light.

The figures are devoid of traditional halos, however there is a shade of supernaturalness in the ease with which Mary, clutching her Son to herself, walks, barely touching the surface of the cloud with her bare feet ... Raphael combined the features of the highest religious ideality with the highest humanity, imagining the queen of heaven with a sad son in her arms - proud, inaccessible , mournful - descending towards people.

The looks and gestures of two angels on foreground addressed to the Madonna. The presence of these winged boys, more reminiscent of mythological cupids, gives the canvas a special warmth and humanity.

The "Sistine Madonna" was commissioned by Raphael in 1512 as an altarpiece for the chapel of the monastery of Saint Sixtus in Piacenza. Pope Julius II, at that time still a cardinal, raised funds for the construction of a chapel where the relics of St. Sixtus and St. Barbara were kept.

The painting, lost in one of the temples of the provincial Piacenza, remained little known until the middle of the 18th century, when the Saxon Elector Augustus the Third, after two years of negotiations, received permission from Benedict to take it to Dresden. Prior to this, August's agents had tried to negotiate the purchase of more famous works Raphael, who were in Rome itself.

In Russia, especially in the first half of the 19th century, Raphael's "Sistine Madonna" was very revered, enthusiastic lines of such different writers and critics like V. A. Zhukovsky, V. G. Belinsky, N. P. Ogarev.

Belinsky wrote from Dresden to V.P. Botkin, sharing with him his impressions of the “Sistine Madonna”: “What nobility, what grace of the brush! You can't look! I involuntarily remembered Pushkin: the same nobility, the same grace of expression, with the same severity of outline! No wonder Pushkin loved Raphael so much: he is kindred to him by nature.

Two great Russian writers, L. N. Tolstoy and F. M. Dostoevsky, had reproductions of the Sistine Madonna in their offices. The wife of F. M. Dostoevsky wrote in her diary: “Fyodor Mikhailovich put the works of Raphael above all else in painting and recognized the Sistine Madonna as his highest work.”

Carlo Maratti expressed his surprise at Raphael in this way: “If they showed me a picture of Raphael and I would not know anything about him, if they told me that this was the creation of an angel, I would believe it.”

The great mind of Goethe not only appreciated Raphael, but also found an apt expression for his assessment: "He always created what others only dreamed of creating." This is true, because Raphael embodied in his works not only the desire for an ideal, but the very ideal available to a mortal.

There are a lot of interesting features in this painting. Please note that it seems that dad is depicted in the picture with six fingers, but they say that the sixth finger is inner part palms.

The two angels below are one of my favorite reproductions. You can often see them on postcards and posters. The first angel has only one wing.

This painting was taken the Soviet army and 10 years was in Moscow, and then was transferred to Germany. If you look closely at the background on which the Madonna is depicted, you will see that it consists of the faces and heads of angels.

It is believed that the model for the Madonna was the beloved Rafael Fanfarin.

This girl was destined to become the first and only love of the great Raphael. He was spoiled by women, but his heart belonged to Fornarina.
Raphael was probably misled by the angelic expression of the pretty face of the baker's daughter. How many times, blinded by love, he portrayed this charming head! Starting in 1514, he painted not only her portraits, these masterpieces of masterpieces, but also created thanks to her images of Madonnas and saints who would be worshiped! But Raphael himself said that this was a collective image.

IMPRESSIONS FROM THE PICTURE

The Sistine Madonna has long been admired, and many beautiful words have been said about her. And in the last century, Russian writers and artists, as if on a pilgrimage, went to Dresden - to the "Sistine Madonna". They saw in her not only a perfect work of art, but also the highest measure of human nobility.

V.A. Zhukovsky speaks of the “Sistine Madonna” as an embodied miracle, as a poetic revelation and admits that it was created not for the eyes, but for the soul: “This is not a picture, but a vision; the longer you look, the more vividly you are convinced that something unnatural is happening in front of you ...
And this is not a deception of the imagination: it is not seduced here either by the liveliness of the colors or the outward brilliance. Here the soul of the painter, without any tricks of art, but with amazing ease and simplicity, conveyed to the canvas the miracle that took place in its insides.

Karl Bryullov admired: “The more you look, the more you feel the incomprehensibility of these beauties: every feature is thought out, full of expression of grace, combined with the strictest style.”

A. Ivanov copied her and was tormented by the consciousness of his inability to catch her main charm.
Kramskoy admitted in a letter to his wife that only in the original he noticed a lot of things that are not noticeable in any of the copies. He was especially interested in the universal meaning of the creation of Raphael:
"It's something really almost impossible...

Whether Mary really was the way she is depicted here, no one has ever known and, of course, does not know, with the exception of her contemporaries, who, however, do not tell us anything good about her. But such, at least, was created by her religious feelings and the beliefs of mankind ...

Raphael's Madonna is truly a great and truly eternal work, even when mankind ceases to believe, when scientific research ... reveals the truly historical features of both of these faces ... and then the picture will not lose its value, but only its role will change.

What does this picture tell me? "Sistine Madonna" by Raphael

What does this picture tell me?

"Sistine Madonna" by Raphael.
Psychoanalyst Andrei Rossokhin and art critic Marina Khaikina choose one painting and tell us about what they know and feel. For what? So that, (not) agreeing with them, we are more clearly aware of our own attitude towards the picture, the plot, the artist and ourselves.

The Sistine Madonna (Old Masters Gallery, Dresden, Germany) was painted by Raphael Santi in 1514 by order of Pope Julius II. The work was intended for the Benedictine monastery of St. Sixtus.

Marina Khaikina, art historian:
"WE ENTER INTO A DIALOGUE WITH THE DIVINE"
“Through the half-open curtain, Mary, with the Child in her arms, descends to meet us through the clouds, in which cherubim are guessed. Madonna looks directly at the viewer, and we meet her eyes. The feeling of movement is conveyed by the folds of the dress, which sway in the wind. At the bottom of the canvas is a marble parapet, from behind which two angels peer out thoughtfully - the most replicated and famous image the Renaissance. It is believed that Rafael saw these two boys on the street, dreamily frozen in front of a bakery window, and transferred them to his canvas. In the figure of Saint Sixtus (left) one can recognize Pope Julius II, and in Saint Barbara (right) his niece Giulia Orsini.

The abundance of air gives a feeling of freedom and lightness, which Raphael accompanies a solemn moment. The direct connection between the earthly and the heavenly, the connection of views is emphasized by the theatricality of the composition: we see the curtain, the cornice on which it is attached, all this looks like a stage where the action takes place. The main thing is the moment of the divine manifestation, the moment that the artist has the right to depict, and the viewer has the right to participate in it. Here Raphael had no predecessors. Formerly artists depicted one or two figures that pointed to the Madonna and thereby involved the viewer in the picture. Here everything is decided differently. Maria herself looks into our eyes, talks to us, she is not somewhere, she is here. It's about not about how believers imagine the divine, but about its appearance and dialogue with it. Only a Renaissance artist could decide to embody such a dialogue - a creator who considered himself equal to God. That is why Michelangelo dared to depict how God and man are connected by an inextricable thread, Leonardo placed Jesus on a par with the monks eating, and Raphael looked into the eyes of the Madonna.

, psychoanalyst:
"HE KNOWS HE CAN'T HOLD HER"

“The image imposed by centuries interferes with the direct perception of the picture - it encourages us to see in Raphael’s Madonna the delight of religious triumph, the transformation of the human into the divine, the earthly into the eternal, harmony that ennobles the soul ... I well understand the doubts of Leo Tolstoy, who once remarked: “Sistine Madonna" does not evoke any feeling, but only an agonizing concern about whether I am experiencing the feeling that is required. The key word here is "anxiety". Many researchers have written about the anxiety emanating from the picture, explaining it by the fact that Raphael wanted to convey the pain of the mother, who foresaw the suffering of her son. I, too, plunging into the picture, feel anxiety and even fear, but only for a different reason. Behind the Madonna, in the background of the picture, I see barely noticeable faces of people (it is believed that these are angels depicted in the form of clouds). Their eyes are eagerly fixed on the Madonna. Why are they all behind a curtain? Is the artist going to let these people in, or, on the contrary, wants to close the curtain as soon as possible in order to leave them there and protect the Madonna from their views? If you look closely, there are many adult, male faces with open mouths that bear little resemblance to angels. They seem disgusting and dangerous, as if they are chasing the Madonna, trying to break through to her, to “swallow” her. To understand the meaning unconsciously invested by Raphael in this background, one must know the history of the painting. It is believed that the prototype of the Madonna was Raphael's mistress - Margherita Luti, the daughter of a baker. She often cheated on him, which caused him to suffer and be very jealous of her. I suppose that unconsciously, in these faces behind the Madonna, Raphael portrayed those men who swarm around her and wanted to seduce her. Apparently, the artist blamed them. And he tried to cleanse his windy beloved from sinful earthly passions, to deify. And there is also a reason for this. Raphael lost his mother very early, at the age of eight. Three years later, his father died. Perhaps, in three children's figures (the angels and the baby Christ are similar to each other, as if they reflect the three children's "I" of Raphael himself), the artist wanted to convey his pain and sadness associated with the loss of his mother and father. One of them, sitting in his mother's arms, already anticipates her early death. Two angels at the bottom of the picture lean on the lid of the coffin. The one on the right is full of melancholic feelings and sadness. The second angel looks full of hope at the Madonna, as if believing in the resurrection of her dead mother. It is interesting that the prototype of these two angels was two boys looking at the window of a bakery inaccessible to them. This is the most important circumstance if we remember that Raphael's mistress was the baker's daughter. Rafael hoped to find his lost mother in his beloved and at the same time was sure that he would lose her, just like his mother. And therefore he could not treat her as a depraved woman. He needed to deify her and make her immortal in order to love her as a mother too. So I feel a double tension in the picture - male passion, burning jealousy and the deepest childhood pain from the loss of a mother, a naive dream of her resurrection. Perhaps, consciously depicting the suffering of the Madonna, foreseeing the loss of her son, he unconsciously put a different meaning into this picture - his own doom and knowledge that he would not be able to keep his woman either as a lover or as a mother.

Raphael Santi (1483-1520), Italian painter, graphic artist, architect of the Renaissance. He worked in Perugia, Urbino, Florence. At the age of 25 he moved to Rome, where he was appointed the official artist of the papal court. Throughout his life he painted Madonnas (42 paintings are known), multi-figured compositions, portraits. For six years he supervised the construction of the Cathedral of St. Peter in Rome.

"Genius pure beauty"- this is what Vasily Zhukovsky said about the" Sistine Madonna ". Later, Pushkin borrowed this image and dedicated it to an earthly woman - Anna Kern. Raphael also painted the Madonna with real person probably from his own mistress

1. Madonna. Some researchers believe that Raphael wrote the image of the Blessed Virgin from his mistress Margherita Luti. According to the Russian art historian Sergei Stam, “in the eyes of the Sistine Madonna, immediate openness and gullibility, ardent love and tenderness, and at the same time alertness and anxiety, indignation and horror at human sins froze; indecisiveness and at the same time readiness to accomplish a feat (to give a son to death. - Note. "Around the world")».

2. Christ Child. According to Stam, “His forehead is not childishly high, and his eyes are completely unchildishly serious. However, in their eyes we do not see any edification, or forgiveness, or reconciling consolation ... His eyes look at the world that has opened before them intently, intensely, with bewilderment and fear. And at the same time, in the look of Christ one can read the determination to follow the will of God the Father, the determination to sacrifice oneself for the salvation of mankind.

3. Sixtus II. Very little is known about the Roman pontiff. He did not stay on the holy throne for long - from 257 to 258 - and was executed under the emperor Valerian by beheading. Saint Sixtus was the patron of the Italian papal family Rovere (Italian "oak"). Therefore, acorns and oak leaves are embroidered on his golden robe.

4. Hands of Sixtus. Raphael wrote the holy pope pointing with his right hand at the throne crucifix (recall that the "Sistine Madonna" hung behind the altar and, accordingly, behind the altar cross). It is curious that the artist depicted six fingers on the pontiff's hand - another six, encrypted in the picture. Left hand the high priest is pressed to his chest - as a sign of devotion to the Virgin Mary.

5. Papal tiara removed from the head of the pontiff as a sign of respect for the Madonna. The tiara consists of three crowns, symbolizing the realm of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is crowned with an acorn - the heraldic symbol of the Rovere family.

6. Saint Barbara was the patroness of Piacenza. This 3rd-century saint, secretly from her pagan father, converted to faith in Jesus. The father tortured and beheaded the apostate daughter.

7. Clouds. Some believe that Raphael depicted the clouds as singing angels. In fact, according to the teachings of the Gnostics, these are not angels, but unborn souls who are in heaven and glorify the Almighty.

8. Angels. The two angels at the bottom of the picture look impassively into the distance. Their apparent indifference is a symbol of acceptance of the inevitability of divine providence: the cross is destined for Christ, and he cannot change his fate.

9. Open curtain symbolizes the open skies. Its green color indicates the mercy of God the Father, who sent his son to death in order to save people.

Pushkin borrowed a poetic formula from an older contemporary and turned it to an earthly woman - Anna Kern. However, this transfer is relatively natural: Raphael may have painted the Madonna with real character- own mistress.

At the beginning of the 16th century, Rome hard war with France for possession of the northern lands of Italy. In general, luck was on the side of the papal troops, and one after another the northern Italian cities went over to the side of the Roman pontiff. In 1512, Piacenza, a town 60 kilometers southeast of Milan, did the same. For Pope Julius II, Piacenza was something more than just a new territory: here was the monastery of St. Sixtus, the patron saint of the Rovere family, to which the pontiff belonged. To celebrate, Julius II decided to thank the monks (who actively campaigned for joining Rome) and ordered from Raphael Santi (by that time already a recognized master) an altar image on which the Virgin Mary appears to St. Sixtus.

Raphael liked the order: it allowed to saturate the picture with symbols that are important for the artist. The painter was a Gnostic - an adherent of the late antique religious movement, based on Old Testament, Eastern mythology and a number of early Christian teachings. Of all the magic numbers, the Gnostics especially honored the six (it was on the sixth day, according to their teaching, that God created Jesus), and Sixt is just translated as “sixth”. Rafael decided to beat this coincidence. Therefore, compositionally, the picture, according to the Italian art critic Matteo Fizzi, encrypts a six in itself: it is made up of six figures that together form a hexagon.

Work on the "Madonna" was completed in 1513, until 1754 the painting was in the monastery of St. Sixtus, until it was bought by the Saxon Elector August III for 20,000 sequins (almost 70 kilograms of gold). Before the start of World War II, the Sistine Madonna was in a gallery in Dresden. But in 1943, the Nazis hid the painting in an adit, where, after a long search, it was discovered. soviet soldiers. So the creation of Raphael came to the USSR. In 1955, the Sistine Madonna, along with many other paintings taken from Germany, was returned to the GDR authorities and is now in the Dresden Gallery.

ARTIST
Rafael Santi

1483 - Born in Urbino in the family of an artist.
1500 - Began training in the art workshop of Pietro Perugino. Signed the first contract - for the creation of the altar image "Coronation of St. Nicholas of Tolentino.
1504–1508 - Lived in Florence, where he met Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. He created the first Madonnas - "Madonna of Granduk" and "Madonna with a Goldfinch".
1508-1514 - Worked on the murals of the papal palace (frescoes " Athenian school”, “The bringing of the Apostle Peter from the dungeon”, etc.), painted a portrait of Pope Julius II. Received the position of scribe of papal decrees.
1512-1514 - Painted the "Sistine Madonna" and "Madonna di Foligno"
1515 - Appointed chief curator of antiquities of the Vatican. Wrote Madonna in the Chair.
1520 - Died in Rome.

Photo: BRIDGEMAN/FOTODOM.RU, DIOMEDIA

The circumstances of the life of the author of the picture. Brief biographical information about the life of the artist Raphael. The main theme and idea of the "Sistine Madonna". The genre and style of the canvas, the artistic meaning of the sky and space. The plot of the picture and the main task of the work.

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Rafael Santi - "Sistine Madonna" (Italian: Madonna Sistina)

Circumstances of the recipient's life

The number of styles and directions is huge. The key feature by which works can be grouped by style is the unified principles of artistic thinking. Styles in art do not have clear boundaries, they smoothly pass one into another and are in continuous development, mixing and opposition. Within the framework of one historical artistic style, a new one is always born, and that, in turn, passes into the next.

For me, the style of almost every era is of interest, but I will highlight the more notable ones, like the style of the Renaissance (Renaissance), Baroque, Classicism and Romanticism. The Renaissance is famous for such great artists as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo. Despite the fact that this era was very fleeting, but during this time the most famous works. What is the "Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci.

The style of the Baroque era attracts me with its riot, a kind of disorder, richness. Artists of this era D. Velasquez, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Jan Vermeer and others.

Classicism relied on the traditions of the Renaissance. But it is tougher, drier and more prudent than the Renaissance style. It was presented by Jacques Baptiste Chardin, Karl Bryullov, Nicolas Poussin and others.

In Romanticism, I like individualism. For myself, I will single out such artists as Friedrich Kaspar, John Constable, Ivan Aivazovsky, Delacroix.

Raphael's painting "The Sistine Madonna" for me is the most outstanding painting of this era. She is beautiful and pure, but full of mysteries.

Circumstances of the author's life

Nature brought Raphael as a gift to the world when she wished to be defeated not only by art, but also by good nature. His outstanding achievements were in no way inferior to his personal charm. It was in him that such strong zeal, beauty, modesty and no small talent shone.

Raphael Santi was born in 1483. He studied painting with his father, the artist Giovanni Santi, but already in young age ended up in the workshop outstanding artist Pietro Perugino. Exactly artistic language and the figurativeness of Perugino's paintings, with their gravitation towards a symmetrical balanced composition, clarity of spatial resolution and softness in solving color and lighting, had a primary influence on the manner of the young Raphael.

Early works ("Madonna Conestabile", ca. 1502--1503) are imbued with grace, soft lyricism. The earthly existence of man, the harmony of spiritual and physical strength glorified in the paintings of the stanzas (rooms) of the Vatican (1509--1517), having achieved an impeccable sense of proportion, rhythm, proportions, euphony of color, unity of figures and majestic architectural backgrounds.

In Florence, having come into contact with the works of Michelangelo and Leonardo, Raphael learned from them anatomically correct image human body. At the age of 25, the artist goes to Rome, and from that moment begins the period of the highest flowering of his work: he performs monumental murals in the Vatican Palace (1509--1511), among which is the undisputed masterpiece of the master - the fresco "Athenian School", writes altar compositions and easel paintings, distinguished by the harmony of design and execution, works as an architect (for some time Raphael even supervises the construction of St. Peter's Cathedral). In the tireless search for his ideal, embodied for the artist in the image of the Madonna, he creates his most perfect creation - the "Sistine Madonna" (1513), a symbol of motherhood and self-denial. The paintings and murals of Raphael were recognized by his contemporaries, and soon Santi became a central figure in the artistic life of Rome. The artist died at the age of thirty-seven in 1520.

The main theme of the work, idea

Rafael Santi's painting "The Sistine Madonna" was originally created by the great painter as an altarpiece for the church of San Sisto in Piacenza.

The main altar, for which the painting was commissioned, was dedicated to Pope Sixtus II, who was executed in the 3rd century by the Roman emperor, and Saint Barbara, according to legend, an extraordinary beauty, beheaded by her own father for the Christian faith. (Barbara is considered the protector from sudden death, and her relics, by the way, are stored in the Vladimir Cathedral in Kyiv.) Pope Julius II himself became the customer for the canvas.

In the painting, the artist depicts the Virgin Mary with the baby Christ, Pope Sixtus II and Saint Barbara. In Renaissance painting, this is perhaps the deepest and most beautiful embodiment of the theme of motherhood. For Rafael Santi, it was also a kind of result and synthesis of many years of searching in the topic closest to him. Raphael wisely used the possibilities of a monumental altar composition here, the view of which opens in the distant perspective of the church interior immediately, from the moment the visitor enters the temple. From afar, the motif of an opening curtain, behind which, like a vision, appears the Madonna walking through the clouds with a baby in her arms, should give the impression of a breathtaking force. The gestures of Saints Sixtus and Barbara, the upward gaze of the angels, the general rhythm of the figures - everything serves to draw the viewer's attention to the Madonna herself.

Compared with the images of other Renaissance painters and with the previous works of Raphael, the painting "Sistine Madonna" reveals an important new quality - an increased spiritual contact with the Spectator. There is something in the look of the Sistine Madonna that seems to allow us to look into her soul. It would be an exaggeration to talk here about the increased psychological expression of the image, about the emotional effect, but in the slightly raised eyebrows of the Madonna, in wide-open eyes - and her gaze itself is not fixed and difficult to catch, as if she is looking not at us, but past or through us , - there is a shade of anxiety and that expression that appears in a person when his fate is suddenly revealed to him. It is like a providence for the tragic fate of her son and at the same time a willingness to sacrifice him. The dramatic nature of the image of the mother is set off in its unity with the image of the infant Christ, whom the artist endowed with unchildish seriousness and insight. It is important, however, to note that with such a deep expression of feeling, the image of the Madonna is devoid of a hint of exaggeration and exaltation - it retains its harmonic underpinnings, but, unlike the previous Raphael creations, it is more enriched with shades of innermost spiritual movements. And, as always with Raphael, the emotional content of his images is extraordinarily vividly embodied in the very plasticity of his figures. The painting "The Sistine Madonna" gives a clear example of the peculiar "ambiguity" inherent in Raphael's images of the most simple movements and gestures. Thus, the Madonna herself appears to us at the same time walking forward and standing still; her figure seems to be easily floating in the clouds and at the same time possessing the real weight of the human body. In the movement of her hands carrying the baby, one can guess the instinctive impulse of the mother clutching the child to herself, and at the same time the feeling that her son does not belong only to her, that she is carrying him as a sacrifice to people. The high figurative content of such motifs distinguishes Raphael from many of his contemporaries and artists of other eras who considered themselves his followers, who often had nothing but an external effect behind the ideal appearance of their characters.

Content: Of the many infant souls circling in the sky, one materializes, becomes a baby. The inexorable cloud of time brings a mother with a baby to the stage of life, with her illnesses, resentments, surprises, anxieties and losses. The mother's fear of the unknown and the inability to keep her son around her forever and protect her from troubles. It is possible to avoid, says religion in the face of the old dad, many troubles, losses, worries, if you follow the path of God, his commandments, his example. High spiritual precepts will be the support of the inexperienced soul in everything life path. Live, says the girl-charm and the earth, with joys and follies, hobbies and disappointments, live the earthly life, you, born of the earth. Do not reject the spiritual wisdom of the old man, but combine it with creativity, arts, beauty, feelings, with the love of beautiful earthly women, and this is the second wisdom of life.

Two service-abandoned, habitually indifferent angels will accept the soul that has left its perishable earthly shell, which has lived a long life of the former chubby baby, and he will again merge into the endless whirlpool of ghostly blue heavenly heads-souls.

Raphael borrowed the idea and composition of the "Sistine Madonna" from Leonardo, but this is also a generalization of his own life experience, images and reflections on the Madonnas, the seat of religion.

jeanp, style

In the Renaissance (Renaissance) the art of a new artistic style is born. This style resurrects the ideals of antiquity, opposing them to the canonical religious forms of art. He gravitates toward clarity, harmony, physicality, balance, symmetry, focus on man as the measure of things. But the rehabilitation of ancient art, the borrowing of its architectural and sculptural forms, imitation of it, the restoration of ancient monuments is only one side of the Renaissance. The main thing is in the desire to revive spiritual and bodily harmony. This desire, however, goes far beyond the ancient understanding of man and the world. The art of the Renaissance embodies the multiply expanded circle of vital interests of a European who has gone through the school of Christian cultivation of the spiritual field.

The aesthetics of the Renaissance in its full development, the Renaissance classics, appears firsthand in the art of Raphael, classical by definition, like the ancient Greeks. Of course, the same can be said about the work of Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and the highest representatives of the Venetian school, while noting certain features, but only Raphael is exemplary in clarity, high simplicity and sincerity of poetics and style. With him alone, the loftiness of ideas and forms contains an intimate, purely human, and purely poetic content. He is a classic of the classics, like Praxiteles, Mozart or Pushkin.

The culture of the Renaissance was not mass and geographically wide. She was spot on. In a very narrow space and in a very short time, an aristocratic artistic fraternity arose, which made a discovery in art and disintegrated, passing the tradition to another “point”. Suffice it to say that " High Renaissance”(Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and their students) existed for only a few decades in a few cities in Italy.

The decline of the harmonic period in the painting of one country and sculpture passes into the dawn of the Renaissance dramaturgy in another.

The Renaissance style was unstable. The decisive majority of Europeans lived in a pre-Renaissance cultural environment. But the legacy of the geniuses of the Renaissance was the material that will be sown and grown in the fields of art right up to our century, being a source of great artistic styles, the existence of which is possible only if there is a prepared mass public.

Color and time

Artistic meaning: Madonna descends from the sky. From the blue sky Not literally to the ground yet, but from the blue. And this is a breakthrough. Because in the Middle Ages “the golden color of the background on the icon ... for the viewer of that time quite plausibly conveys the color of heaven”

And peer into the blue - natural for us today - the sky of Raphael. It's full of faces of unborn souls! - That's a contradiction for you. Collision in one image of two worlds: ours and another, - gives catharsis. Which can be interpreted as the harmony of the earthly and heavenly.

The same with the image of the Madonna. This is a barefoot peasant woman, frightened by attention to herself, with a frightened baby, whom she tightly, very tightly - from fright - presses to herself (the baby's right shoulder is already lifted up from this and he firmly pressed his right hand to his mother, the lock was made so that he She was not taken away from her. And this peasant woman walks with timid steps toward us, sinful and dangerous. But her fear was aroused not by some supersensible foresight, but by the fact that a weak woman knows life like everyone else.

This is on the one hand. On the other hand, she floats. At a speed much greater than her steps provide. As a result, matter behaves in a completely contradictory way. From the jet of wind that brings it in, the curtain wraps up towards us, the heavy floors of papal vestments begin to swell like sails, and the hem of the dress and the cape of St. Barbara fly off. And, on the other hand, Madonna is carried by some other force, forcing her to overcome air resistance. And the brown cape of the Madonna and the lower skirts of Her blue cloak swell back.

And from the collision - the ideal: not the elevation of the value of man to the divine category (which would be pride, blasphemy), but the harmony of the body and the spiritual.

After all, its laws have already been discovered by the time of Raphael's work. And they demand that there be a single vanishing point for the whole picture. And Raphael made three of them: for the angels below, for Pope Sixtus II and St. Barbara in the middle, and for the Madonna. There are three horizons for the viewer's eyes. And the viewer seems to float up. Soars with the soul.

And at the same time, at each level, the bodies are depicted in such a way that only he, the viewer, standing on the floor in front of the picture can see them, a person who does not take his feet off the floor in order to be in turn at each level.

And the eyes, accustomed to reading from left to right, slide from below, from the angels, up first over the figure of the pope, then to the face of the Madonna, down her swollen and arched cape, down to Barbara, who, in turn, looks even lower, at the right angel, which is lower than the left . And from there, the eyes are drawn to what is higher. And up again. And so again in a circle. This most perfect geometric figure.

Composition: The composition of the "Sistine Madonna" is simple at first glance. In fact, this is apparent simplicity, because general construction The painting is based on an unusually subtle and at the same time strictly adjusted ratios of volumetric, linear and spatial motifs that give the picture grandeur and beauty. Her impeccable balance, devoid of artificiality and schematism, does not in the least hinder the freedom and naturalness of the movements of the figures. The figure of Sixtus, dressed in a wide mantle, for example, is heavier than the figure of Barbara and is somewhat lower than her, but the curtain over Varvara is heavier than over Sixtus, and thus the necessary balance of masses and silhouettes is restored. Such a seemingly insignificant motif as the papal tiara, placed in the corner of the picture on the parapet, is of great figurative and compositional significance, introducing into the picture that part of the feeling of the earthly firmament, which is required to give the heavenly vision the necessary reality. The contour of the figure of the Madonna, powerfully and freely delineating her silhouette, full of beauty and movement, speaks enough about the expressiveness of the melodious lines of Rafael Santi.

Time: Raphael created the Sistine Madonna around 1516. By this time, he had already written many paintings depicting the Mother of God. Very young, Raphael became famous as an amazing master and incomparable poet image of the Madonna. The St. Petersburg Hermitage houses the Conestabile Madonna, which was created by a seventeen-year-old artist. In the Pitti Gallery there is his "Madonna in the Chair", in the Prado Museum - "Madonna with a Fish", in the Vatican Pinakothek - "Madonna del Foligno", other Madonnas have become treasures of other museums. But when the time came to write his main work, Raphael left numerous works to his students in the Vatican Palace in order to write with his own hand an altarpiece for the monastery church of St. Sixtus in distant Piacenza.

Many assume that Raphael wrote the "Sistine Madonna" at a time when he himself was experiencing severe grief. And therefore he put all his sadness into the divine face of his Madonna - the most perfect embodiment of the ideal in Christianity. He created the most beautiful image of the Mother of God, combining in it the features of the highest religious ideality with the highest humanity.

Altar images were then written on the board, but Raphael painted this Madonna of his on canvas. At first, the "Sistine Madonna" was located in the semicircular choir of the monastery church (now defunct), and the towering figure of the Mother of God seemed to be floating in the air from afar. In 1754, the painting was purchased by King August III of Saxony and brought to his Dresden residence. The court of the Saxon Electors paid 20,000 sequins for it, a considerable sum in those days. And now, when visitors to the famous Gallery come closer to the picture, they are more strongly embraced by a new impression. The Mother of God is no longer floating in the air, but as if walking towards you.

Raphael Sistine Madonna

The plot of the picture and the main task works

The painting depicts a woman with a child, but this is not just a woman, this is a virgin holding a blessed child in her arms. Her gentle and at the same time sad look seems to know what an ungrateful future awaits her son. The child, on the contrary, is full of life, strength and energy, which is very clearly seen in his constitution.

The mother tremblingly and tenderly holds her son in her arms, pressing the naked body closer to her, as if trying to protect him from all the troubles that life brings us. In the picture, a woman is depicted standing in heaven, because it was she who gave birth to the Savior, she brought the Blessing to the lands of sinners.

The parapet at the bottom of the picture is the only barrier that separates the earthly world from the heavenly world. As in reality, the green curtain parted to the sides, and Mary with the divine son in her arms appears to your eyes. She walks, and it seems that now the Mother of God will step over the parapet and set foot on the ground, but this moment lasts forever. The Madonna remains motionless, always ready to descend and always out of reach.

In the picture there is neither earth nor sky, there is no familiar landscape or architectural scenery in the depths. All the free space between the figures is filled with clouds, thicker and darker at the bottom, more transparent and radiant at the top. The heavy senile figure of St. Sixtus, immersed in the heavy folds of the gold-woven papal vestments, froze in solemn worship. His outstretched hand to us eloquently emphasizes main idea pictures - the appearance of the Mother of God to people.

On the other side, Saint Barbara leaned, and both figures seem to support Mary, forming around her vicious circle. Some call these figures auxiliary, secondary, but if you remove them (even if only mentally) or even slightly change their position in space, the harmony of the whole will immediately collapse. The meaning of the whole picture and the very image of Mary will change. Reverently and tenderly, the Madonna presses her son to her chest, sitting in her arms. Neither mother nor child can be imagined separately from each other, their existence is possible only in indissoluble unity. Maria, the human intercessor, carries her son towards the people. In her lonely procession, all that mournful and tragic sacrifice to which the Mother of God is doomed is expressed.

The world of the "Sistine Madonna" is unusually complex, although, at first glance, nothing in the picture portends trouble. And yet, the viewer is haunted by a sense of impending anxiety. A sweet-voiced choir of angels sings, filling the sky (the background of the canvas) and glorifying Mary. The kneeling Sixtus does not tear his enthusiastic gaze from the Mother of God, Saint Barbara humbly lowered her eyes. Nothing seems to threaten the peace of Mary and her son. But anxious shadows run and run along the folds of clothes and draperies Clouds swirl under the feet of the Madonna, the very radiance surrounding her and the God-child promises a storm.

All eyes actors the paintings are directed in different directions, and only Mary with the divine baby is looking at us. Raphael depicted a wonderful vision on his canvas and accomplished the seemingly impossible. The whole picture is full of internal movement, illuminated by a trembling light, as if the canvas itself radiates a mysterious glow. This light either barely glimmers, or shines, or almost sparkles. And this pre-stormy state is reflected on the face of the infant Christ, his face is full of anxiety. It is as if he sees the lightning of an approaching thunderstorm, in his not childishly severe eyes a reflection of distant troubles is visible, for "I did not bring peace to you, but a sword ...". He clings to his mother's breast, but restlessly peers into the world.

The "Sistine Madonna" is a masterpiece, because it combines incompatible phenomena, like a mortal human body and the sacredness of the spirit, like the birth of children, characteristic of "simple" people, and the atonement of sins through murder.

Everything is mixed up, everything argues with each other, but at the same time, one complements the other. Without a body it would be impossible to depict a woman who gave the world a Divine child, without a spirit there is no life in the body, without the natural birth of a child, how would people understand that they are also capable of following the righteous path from birth, how to become sinless without atonement for sin.

So many emotions fit on one canvas, so many human minds and thoughts lay on the bed of knowing the truth, but only the author himself can say with confidence and without fiction what exactly he had in mind, uniting incompatible things.

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