School of Athens by Raphael Santi

School of Athens by Raphael Santi

Working on the “School of Athens” – a fresco on the theme of philosophy. Raphael painted a fantastic temple, the main nave which goes into the blue distance a number of vaulted arches, and put in its space of the ancient philosophers and scientists.

In the center depicts Plato pointing to the sky, which he believed, determines the whole of human life, and Aristotle, stretched out his hand over the land. To the left, actively gesturing, explaining something students Socrates steep, stubborn forehead, lower Pythagoras wrote in the book, where the curious look sitting around him, Heraclitus of Ephesus stood with pen in hand, lost in his thoughts, Diogenes reclines in a relaxed pose on marble steps to the right, bending over the plate, Archimedes wrote his formula, behind him talking Strabo and Claudius Ptolemy. In the latter group, Raphael painted the Greek painter Apelles in a dark hat, looking at the viewer, giving it its own characteristics.

This mural can find other portraits of the artist’s contemporaries Plato resembles Leonardo da Vinci, and Heraclitus – Michelangelo, and they are written in the style of each of these masters. The figure of the first harmonic, as well as pictures of Da Vinci, it balanced and is enclosed in an oval invisible, and his face expresses calm. The second sitting in the complex, “twisted” position, it felt burning restless thoughts, his appearance sends the viewer’s imagination to a huge mural, which was then in the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo created: this figure is reminiscent of the prophets from the ceiling. Thus, if Rafael winked at his eternal rival, once again stressing how much the international brotherhood of artists.

Despite the abundance of characters, besides divided into groups, “The School of Athens” gives the impression of unity shown. Rafael alternates between static and dynamic posture, the whole composition is in a circle, it closes the light, slim architecture, filled with air. But “lovers of wisdom” are combined and the general mood: they are all, each in his own way, seeking the truth, which must prevail in human life as well as light arches of the temple of philosophy and blue sky towering over the heads of thinkers.

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