Photographing Raffaello (Art no.1) by sandra46
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Description
This and the other images of this series are dedicated to Bill, Mark, Chip and all the others, too numerous to be mentioned, that started a discussion about art. If you remember it was triggered by Bill's shot of a pop art saxophone some time ago. This fresco is the opposite of pop art: in fact we are inside the Vatican, in Pope Alexander 6th Borgia's apartments, frescoed by Raffaello. It was a time when classes were rigidly separated, and art for the people was different from art for the ruling elite. Everybody agreed about it, first of all the artists. Popular at that time (when Columbus got lost on the American shores) meant that an artist was famous, not that he made works of art for the people. Yet, it wasn't a scandal at all if models from the lower ranks of the populace, mistresses, lovers, whores and pretty lads, posed to become saints and virgin martyrs. During his short life Raffaello was even more elitist than Michelangelo, but his paintings, as well as Michelangelo's and the other Renaissamce artists, were made not to be preserved in museums (which had not started their existence yet), but to be lived and admired by those who lived in these rooms, and their hosts.
The hands with the camera belong to an unknown tourist.
Thank you for your kind comments.
Comments (42)
interceptking
LONG LIVE DIGITAL ART!
clbsmiley
Oh My! And thanks for sharing image and info!
mariogiannecchini
Una visione di vera arte pittorica ,assolutamente eccezionale , dagli inconfondibili colori! un vero piacere per gli occhi!
Kaartijer
Cool image!
Richardphotos
very beautiful Sandra
anmes
Can't lose with this capture!!
Minaya
Fantastic shot from the gorgeous art!
beatoangelico
MERAVIGLIOSA CAPTURA E SUPERBA ARTE...WELL DONE MY FRIEND..!!!
danapommet
Super narrative and fantastic art work lasting more than 500 years. Dana
Marinette
...sotto voce ti dirò: quelle mani saranno sicuramente di un turista asiatico; sai che al Salone del mobile di Milano li trovavi anche dentro i cassetti o sotto i tavoli a fotografare?! Io non osavo crederci, ma li ho proprio visti! Raffaello è un'altro dei miei artisti preferiti! Bellissimo scatto! :)
KarmaSong
The Italian school of painting is something I would like to know better. How varied and gorgeous it is!
anahata.c
Well Sandra, I see the last comment on this was July 16th...and here I am at the beginning of November! (Timing isn't one of my better points, lol...) I'm so sorry I missed commenting on this extraordinary series at the time: In a way, the series deserves a whole forum, an article or monograph or open dialogue (perhaps punctuated with work)...something that does the dialogue justice. But I'll try to react the best I can, now. I'll try to get to 4 or 5, each session, and return every few days until I get them all. I only regret I didn't at the time they went up. These are typical of your work here---just typical, which speaks to the quality of your uploads---and I loved it as each new installment went up. Ok (can I do this in 1 paragraph, lol?) As an anthropologist, I assume you regard the arts to have originated in some kind of rite, and rite for the community that created it (or even special groups within that community). I can't trace things as you can, but I assume that art for the elite is a broad extension of that original rite, art for the chosen group. And so art for the powerful, rich and the cloistered makes so much sense, historically. As your series shows in many ways, our sense of art (Ie, as belonging to the 'world') is so very new, and it took mass technology to help it happen, as well as change in attitude, not the least of which was the rise of modern democracies. But I imagine you also feel, from your years of profound study & elation at what you see, that the artist is still expressing elements of inner experience of this life, and that the artist cannot edit that out no matter how hard he/she tries. The gowns of his/her time, the cultural mores, etc etc, can't edit out the basic elements of artistic expression; they'll be there, no matter what gowns they appear to us in. This fresco still has all the elements of Raffaello's time & the cloistered world he created for, but also of Raffaello, the person: Ie, hIs signature sense of linear 'music' (the way the contours of arms, torsos, legs, etc, move in a musical line from person to person, creating---as he does even in portraits of 2 or 3 figures---a visual fugue, or at least song); his signature use of certain colors to act as "periods" for his linear sentences (it, the two lighter blue gowns here, which stand out from the other gowns---and without going back to this fresco, I'm sure he chose these colors to match the story he's recreating); his sense of drama, created by the (implied) lines of gazes, how they take us from person to person in a train of energies, again often related to the story at hand; his sense of billow & space, how he creates tactile space out of human clouds in turn out of gowns and postures (kneeling, standing, bending, etc), a Renaissance technique, yet one which he handled in his unique way; and so on...No matter how much Raffaello geared his art to his patrons (& for the approval of his patrons), he still put in the music which populates all art into his art. He couldn't keep it out if he tried. (Even Warhol---coming up---put music into his art, while he tried to remove the human signature from some of his art.) So the wonderful thing about this entry is that it is both elite and yet wholly typical of human expression across culture & time---a juxtaposition which is brought all the more to the fore by your photograph: Because you show the elite setting (1), you show a work which contains elements of human expression across time & culture (2)---the very assertion of which can be interpreted as a willful removal of the work from its original context---and you've taken all that and put into another setting---i.e., your photograph. I don't know if you shot this & then decided to use it in your series, or if you had the series in mind when you took it. (Maybe you did, unconsciously, maybe it was an amorphous 'thought'...) Point is: This is clearly a photograph, and not one for an art book, at that---ie, where the photographer is invisible, and the work of art is all-present---but for this gallery---where your wonderful skewed angle is a second act of extraction. (Raffaello has your number, and watch out 'cause this dude has some pretty powerful allies...) The skewed angle throws us right back on ourselves, reminds us that it is you who present this & not Raffaello (sorry, R), and that we are viewing something wholly outside its time & place---re-emphasized by the photographer's hands, reaching above the moulding. Oh am I glad you included those. Now you are doing modern art! (Or post-modern. Don't quote me on terms here, lol...) Perfect for the upload---someone from our age taking a shot of this fresco, reminding us of the juxtapositions these places bring us (and which your gallery brings us). A great way to start this series, I must say, and it inspires all kinds of thoughts of things I could do to continue the dialogue. Funny thing is, "fresco" (as you know) comes from the same root as our "fresh". A fun coincidence, because your capture makes an old symbol of Renaissance power very contemporary---fresh---and evokes a big smile. Believe me, it was hard not to jump in when you first posted this. These long comments take me time & I couldn't do them then; but I really thought about them. Wonderful start to the series!