Introduction
| Florence and Rome | Giulio Romano | Polidoro da Caravaggio | Perino
del Vaga
Raphael,
born Raffaello Santi in 1483, has been admired for his mastery of the
art of drawing since his lifetime. During the Renaissance, theorists considered
drawing to be the foundation of all the visual arts. Most of Raphael's drawings
were made as preparatory studies for wall paintings, altarpieces, tapestries,
engravings, and works of decorative art. Ranging from quick sketches to
large-scale works (cartoons), these studies reveal the process by which
Raphael created his lucid compositions and formulated the poses and expressions
of individual figures. Although only thirty-seven years old when he died in 1520,
his work had a profound and far-reaching influence not only in his own time but for centuries to come.
Raphael
spent his youth collaborating with other artists, and in his later years
he controlled large workshops. Raphael and His Circle: Drawings from Windsor Castle,
brings together his drawings with
those of his principal masters, Giovanni Santi and Pietro
Perugino, and three of his assistants, Giulio
Romano, Perino del Vaga,
and Polidoro da Caravaggio.
Several of the old master drawings now at Windsor were in England by the
seventeenth century and may have entered the royal collection under King
Charles II. The majority, however, were bought in Italy in the 1760s by
agents acting for King George III.
Raphael's Masters and His Early Years
Raphael was born in 1483 in Urbino, seventy miles east of Florence.
During his childhood, he would have been exposed to the artistic activity
centered around the court of the dukes of Montefeltro in Urbino. Raphael
received his first training from his father, Giovanni Santi, a painter
and poet. After his father's death in 1494, Raphael traveled extensively
and worked with several masters, including the dominant Umbrian painter
Pietro Perugino.
Introduction
| Florence and Rome | Giulio Romano | Polidoro da Caravaggio | Perino
del Vaga