St. Luke's Painting of the Virgin and Child in Front of Raphael is widely recognized as belonging to Raphael San Zio
Portrait of Federico Zukari Anon. (recognized as belonging to Federico Zucari)
The Remains of Raphael Vincenzo Camucini
"Self-Portrait" Antonio Canova "Statue of Napoleon Bonaparte as the First Consul" Antonio Canova
Fortuna (Goddess of Destiny) Quido Reni and Antonio Giarolla
◎ Wang Jia
2020 marks the 500th anniversary of the death of Raphael San Zio, the youngest of the "Three Masters of the Renaissance", and unfortunately, due to the impact of the covid-19 pandemic that has swept the world, many Raphael commemorations were planned around the world, except for the largest retrospective exhibition in the artist's history of the Palazzo Selena in Rome, "Raphael: 1483-1520", which finally appeared after undergoing closures and postponements, and the remaining unopened events had to be planned for different purposes. Among them, as one of the "500 Years of Raphael" series of activities, "Raphael and the Classical Code - Exhibition of Treasures of the National Academy of Fine Arts of St. Luke, Italy" is one of the affected.
With the basic stabilization of China's epidemic prevention and control this year, the exhibition was also able to successfully open at the first stop of the Nanshan Museum in Shenzhen, and arrived in Beijing to visit the Guardian Art Center for a touring exhibition, and renamed it "Meet Raphael - From the Renaissance to the Neoclassical Masters Collection Exhibition". This special exhibition has attracted much attention because it contains two works classified as raphael's original works, but among the dozens of masterpieces in the collection of the National Academy of Fine Arts of St. Luke in Rome and the National Gallery of Umbria in Italy, is the original Raphael's original the only attraction?
St. Luke's
The patron saint of the artist
Before admiring the collections of the National Academy of Fine Arts of St. Luke's in Rome, Italy, it is necessary to get to know this historic Art Academy in Europe. The term Academy was first coined from the ancient Greek name of the villa where Plato taught philosophical ideas. With the rebirth of Plato's ideas in Renaissance Italy, on January 13, 1563, the first academy in the true sense of the word, at the initiative of the Grand Duke of Florence, Cosimo I de' Medici, was founded under the leadership of the famous artist Giorgio Vasari, called the "Florentine School of Drawing". However, the nature of the academy was more for the cultivation of artistic talents for Archduke Cosimo I than for the free development of artists. In 1593, 30 years after the founding of the Academy of Drawing arts in Florence, the National Academy of Fine Arts of San Luke in Rome was founded, and the first director, Federico Zucari, worked and studied in the first ten years of the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. The biggest difference from the Academy of Florence is that st. Luke's Academy does not serve a duke or court, but is closely related to the Vatican. Its original intention was also to protect and help artists, and to try to inherit and continue Raphael's aesthetic spirit of "harmony, sublimeness, dignity and elegance".
The reason why the college is called St. Luke is related to the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament of the Bible. St. Luke was a Catholic saint who recorded and assembled the gospel of Luke from 61 to 62 A.D. about the birth, childhood, ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. It is said that he was the first person to paint a portrait of the Virgin Mary and the Infant Jesus, so from the 8th century onwards the Catholic Church regarded St. Luke as the first famous painter and patron saint of the artist. The Guild of St. Luke, a group that began to rise throughout Europe since the late Middle Ages, to protect the rights of artists, was named in honor of St. Luke's.
As one of the earliest institutions in Europe, st. Luke's Institute, supported by the Vatican Holy See, was naturally named in order to gain the blessing of St. Luke, the patron saint. Exhibited in Beijing and as the poster for the exhibition of the Guardian Art Center, it is widely believed to be Raphael's original "St. Luke Painting the Virgin and Child in Front of Raphael" was painted by the painter based on the legend of St. Luke's statue of the Virgin and Child.
The painting, donated to the Academy by the first abbot, Zukari, depicts St. Luke sitting in front of an easel, staring intently at the Virgin and Child on the left; next to him is a bull symbolizing strength and energy, and the handsome long-haired man standing behind St. Luke is a self-portrait of the painter Raphael. Not only did he skillfully "place" himself in this sacred legendary context, but he also meant that as a painter he also received the blessing of St. Luke. The appearance of this painting in the last section of the exhibition hall is also equivalent to a summary of the theme of the exhibition: the St. Luke's Academy of Fine Arts, which aims at raphael's aesthetic spirit, is named by raphael's main patron saint.
St. Luke's College
Disciples and disciples spread all over Europe
At the beginning of 2018, the National Museum of China successfully held the "Academy and Salon - Collection Exhibition of the National Centre for Plastic Arts in Paris". Compared with the St. Luke's Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, China's art lovers are obviously more familiar with the National Academy of Fine Arts in Paris, not only because this is the alma mater of Lin Fengmian and Xu Beihong, two of China's painting giants, but also from fragonard, Jacques Louis David, Dominic Angle, Eugène de la Clova, Edgar Degas and Henri Matisse, many other French painting giants we are familiar with. However, when we go back to the roots, we will find that the establishment of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, the predecessor of the National Academy of Fine Arts in Paris, is directly related to the St. Luke's Academy of Fine Arts.
Founded in 1648 at the behest of Louis XVI, the Royal French Academy of Painting and Sculpture, one of its first directors and founders, Charles Le Brunn, hailed by louis XIV, the "Sun King" Louis XIV, benefited greatly from the St. Luke's Academy of Fine Arts during his four years of study in Rome. Two of his mentors, Simon Wué and Pietro da Cortona, both served as deans of the Academy, and he became a direct beneficiary of the art education system of the St. Luke's Academy of Fine Arts. When Le Brun returned to France with the teaching concept of Italian harvest, as one of the twelve "founding fathers" of the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, he not only referred to the teaching mode of the St. Luke's National Academy of Fine Arts in designing and planning the framework and education system of the Academy, but also established the Academy Branch in Rome in 1663 (that is, later relocated to villa Medici, as a branch for the gold medalist of the "Rome Prize"). In 1676, Le Brun became president of st. Luke's American Academy. Although his grand vision of a management alliance for the two academies soon became stillborn, the interplay between the St. Luke's Academy of Fine Arts and the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture of France, from architecture to teaching philosophy, continued.
It is worth mentioning that another of Le Brun's benefactors, Nicolas Poussin, and his friend Claude Laurent, two of the great masters of national painting respected by the French academic school, both studied at the St. Luke's Academy of Fine Arts. With the increasing influence of the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Europe, the Austrian Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and the British Royal Academy of Fine Arts have also been established with reference to their structure and educational model. In view of this, we can say today that the St. Luke's Academy, which has been established for more than four centuries, is undoubtedly the cradle of the entire academic system in Europe.
Perugino
Raphael's pro-teacher
Stepping into the exhibition hall, several paintings by Raphael's mentor Perugino are the first to catch your eye. Perugino, whose real name was Pietro Vanucci, was not only the most famous painter of the time in Perugia, the capital of Umbria, but was also invited by Pope Giulio II to paint murals in the Sistine Chapel. As a painter who studied with Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli in the Verozchio Workshop, Perugino's fame today is far less than that of the previous two masters, but his significance lies in becoming Raphael's first true teacher and leading the youngest genius among the talented "Three Masters of the Renaissance" to the path to success.
As one of the few works borrowed from the collection of the National Gallery of Umbria, several of perugino's original works "Giacomo de la Maca of the Blessed", the altar painted decorative screens "St. Paul the Hermit" and "Saint Lucia", and the double-sided circular paintings "David" and "Daniele" fully demonstrate the painter's delicate and restrained painting style. By comparing raphael's reproductions from his studies under Perugino in the same exhibition area, it is clear that the former inherits the serene atmosphere, harmonious composition and elegant manners of the painting.
Although Raphael's early works are highly similar to those of his teachers, the young man in his early twenties is far superior to his master's capture of the subtle looks of the characters, the vividness of the body language in the paintings, and the drama of presenting complex narratives. Techniques can be learned and imitated, but keen observation and extraordinary understanding are innate. The contrast of master-apprentice works in the first part of the exhibition not only elucidates the relationship and influence of the two, but also presents the process of how Raphael formed a unique personal style on his own.
Pantheon farce
Raphael was "opened for autopsy"
In addition to the above-mentioned masterpieces of oil paintings, there are two special prints in the exhibition that are worth mentioning. The paintings are all from the Italian neoclassical painter Vincenzo Camucini, carved by the printmaker Gian Battista Bolarni, and the subject is the remains of the artist in Raphael's mausoleum in the Pantheon of Rome.
Ever since Raphael became a cultural symbol in the 19th century through Kant's "theory of genius" and romanticism, there has been much debate about whether the pantheon is really buried with his true body. In order to "verify the body", the then Pope Gregory XVI ordered the opening of the coffin for autopsy. The event took place on September 14, 1833, when the Pope led 75 prominent figures from all walks of life to the Pantheon to witness the entire process of the forensic surgeons' expletion of the coffin in full view of everyone, including Horace Vernet, then president of the Académie de Rome, the Italian painter Francesco DiOfie, and the painter Vincenzo Camucini, who was president of the St. Luca Academy of Fine Arts twice from 1806 to 1810 and 1826. Although all three left paintings documenting this historic scene in different styles and perspectives, the latter was authorized to paint the entire process of the opening of the coffin.
Vincenzo Camucini created several manuscripts for this purpose, some of which were printed by the printmaker Gian Battista Bolani for wider reproduction and dissemination. The two prints in this exhibition of the remains of Raphael's mausoleum in the collection of st. Luke's Beaux-Arts are from the four surviving works in this series. Although the act of opening Raphael's coffin for examination without DNA technology was absurd, this major historical event in the art world caused a sensation throughout the city of Rome at that time. According to historical records, its popularity is no less than any large-scale exhibition that attracts worldwide attention today. Since the coffin will be replaced after the autopsy, raphael's remains will be displayed in a glass display case for 6 days before the replacement, and tickets will be sold for their fans to visit. In 6 days, more than 3,000 tickets were sold. In an era without any photographic technique, Tokamuccini and several other painters used their brushes to faithfully record the farce of the coffin of a generation of genius Raphael who was tragically opened for autopsy more than three centuries after his death.
Napoleon said
No rules should be set for genius
In the more than 400 years of history of St. Luke's Academy of Fine Arts, the artists who have served as principals are many famous artists. Gian Bernini, Simon Wuer, Dominicio, Pietro da Cortona, Charles Le Brun, Giovanni Paul Panini, Antonio Canova and many other masters who have left a strong mark on the history of Western art have all been in charge of the Academy. Several of these works were also exhibited in China along with two raphael paintings.
The few huge oil paintings in the exhibition hall belong to Pietro da Cortona, and two of them, the fresco "The Triumph of Galathea", painted by Raphael in the villa of Farnesina in Rome, and the triumph of Titian's masterpiece "The Wedding of Bacchus and Ariadne", show his superb technique while also reflecting his determination to adhere to the aesthetic traditions of his predecessors. One of his most famous works, the dome mural "Triumph of the Divine Will", painted for the Palazzo Barberini in Rome, also appears in the exhibition hall in the form of a spray painting on the exhibition wall, and this monumental work is also based on the work of Raphael's eldest disciple Giulio Romano in the process of creation. Cortona's art undoubtedly represents the academic tradition of the 17th-century St. Luke's Academy of Fine Arts– following raphael's aesthetics, incorporating ornate decorative elements of the Baroque period and body language full of light and shadow.
After Cortona, Giovanni Paulo Panini, who was active in the 18th century, developed another subdivision of painting, "Fantasy Landscape Painting", based on the inheritance of academic painting. Archaeology began to emerge as the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii were discovered at the foot of Mount Vesuvius in Italy in the 18th century. Johann Winkelmann, a German recognized as the first antiquities scholar, once said: "The only way to greatness and incomparable, if there is such a way, is to learn from antiquity." As a result, Panini's "fantasy landscape painting" with natural scenery as the background highlights the remains and ruins of fictional buildings with the painter's subjective imagination and decorative uses came into being.
The two works in the exhibition, "The Sermon of the Apostles" and "The Archaeological Survey of the Ruins", are excellent examples of this landscape subdivision. His portrayal of ancient Roman ruins as authentic and nostalgic not only shows his admiration for the protection of cultural relics and sites by his predecessor Raphael (Raphael once "wrote" Tocopalio Leo X's advice on the protection of the monuments of the city of Rome, which was later awarded the "Vatican Antiquities Protection Commissioner" by the Pope, and thus became the first "Director of the Antiquities Protection Bureau" in the history of world cultural heritage protection), but also set off a wave of "grand travel" that swept across 18th-century Europe, and more cleverly said for the poet Baudelaire who "neither arbitrarily used nor was it completely precise." The romantic trend of "going with the feeling" between the two is a great preparation.
One of the few sculptures in the exhibition, two plaster sculptures by Antonio Canova, "Statue of Napoleon Bonaparte as the First Consul" and "Self-Portrait", stand out in front of the back wall featuring Jacques Louis David's "Napoleon Crossing the Saint-Bernard Pass in the Alps".
Although the 500th anniversary of Raphael's death was missed last year, this year is another important year - the 200th anniversary of the death of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, so the bust sculpture of Napoleon appearing in the exhibition does mean "unintentional willows". As the most important sculptor of the neoclassical period, Canova completed several deity-like statues for Napoleon. The French emperor, who loved art and cherished talent, gave him absolute creative freedom, because "no rules should be set for genius".
A little-known fact is that Napoleon was still a big fan of Raphael. One of his most important tasks after becoming the hegemon of Europe was to order his men to plunder the original works of Raphael everywhere and build his "Napoleon Museum". After Napoleon's defeat, Canova was ordered by the Pope to go to France to recover looted Italian art, including Raphael's "Apparition of Christ", which is now in the Vatican Museums.
During his lifetime, Canova was awarded the title of life president of the St. Luke's Academy of Fine Arts, and he advocated the return of Raphael's aesthetic spirit, which also coincided with the ideas of Jacques Louis David, the two presidents of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and Ingres's apprentices. By bringing together the masterpieces of the above-mentioned star principals, the exhibition system sorts out the evolution and development of the painting style and aesthetic trends of the St. Luke's Academy of Fine Arts from the Renaissance to the Neoclassical period on the basis of inheriting raphael's aesthetics. In fact, the highlight of the exhibition is not only the authentic works in the display cases, but also the moving story of how st. Luke's Academy of Fine Arts has been passed down and developed for more than three centuries, and "met Raphael" in various historical periods. Courtesy photo/Guardian Arts Center