Raphael and the Antique
Claudia La MalfaA full account of Renaissance artist Raphael’s prodigious yet short-lived career.
The Renaissance artist Raphael is known for his extraordinary frescoes, his sublime Madonnas, devotional altarpieces, architectural designs, and his inventive prints and tapestries. It was his use of ancient Roman models – classical sculptures, reliefs and paintings – that formed his much admired classical style, and influenced the styles of many later artists.
In Raphael and the Antique Claudia La Malfa gives a full account of Raphael’s prodigious career, from central Italy when he was 17 years old, to Perugia, Siena and Florence, where he first met with Leonardo and Michelangelo, to Rome where he became one of the most feted artists of the Renaissance. This book focuses and highlights Raphael’s re-invention of classical models, his draughtsmanship and his concept of art, which he pursued and was still striving to perfect at the time of his death aged only 37, in 1520.
A full account of Renaissance artist Raphael’s prodigious yet short-lived career.
The Renaissance artist Raphael is known for his extraordinary frescoes, his sublime Madonnas, devotional altarpieces, architectural designs, and his inventive prints and tapestries. It was his use of ancient Roman models – classical sculptures, reliefs and paintings – that formed his much admired classical style, and influenced the styles of many later artists.
In Raphael and the Antique Claudia La Malfa gives a full account of Raphael’s prodigious career, from central Italy when he was 17 years old, to Perugia, Siena and Florence, where he first met with Leonardo and Michelangelo, to Rome where he became one of the most feted artists of the Renaissance. This book focuses and highlights Raphael’s re-invention of classical models, his draughtsmanship and his concept of art, which he pursued and was still striving to perfect at the time of his death aged only 37, in 1520.
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Claudia La Malfa’s absorbing Raphael and the Antique, which is part of Reaktion Books series called Renaissance Lives . . . these books are not intended to be full-blooded cradle to grave last words on their subjects, but rather seek to shed light on particular aspects of their work alongside a more general account of their careers. In the case of Raphael, his engagement with the arts of classical antiquity is an unusually rewarding focus, above all because it allows the author not only to demonstrate the seriousness of his study of both the sculpture and the architecture of the ancients, but also to explore the consequences of this profound immersion on his own production . . . the book has a wonderful – and fascinating – surprise half a dozen pages or so from its end.
'David Ekserdjian, Evening Standard
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Claudia La Malfa's lively book follows Raphael's developing interest in antique forms in his paintings and drawings . . . it serves as a readable general introduction to Raphael's art, for her analyses stretch well beyond the central theme.
'The Art Newspaper
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At the heart of Raphael’s practice, and of La Malfa’s book, is the city of Rome and its ancient remains, which Raphael fervently studied and "recast in his own stylistic idiom": ancient architecture, painting, and especially sculptures that emerged almost daily from the ruins . . . Though the author’s focus and the works illustrated offer a less conventional view of Raphael, her book is a thorough introduction to the artist’s relationship to the antique . . . Recommended.
'Choice
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Following the thread of this classicism, as it is both broadly and narrowly defined, in Raphael’s art from the beginning of his career to the end is the method of Claudia La Malfa, an expert guide whose earlier work on Pinturiccho and the antique harbingered the present study. Framed by a graceful introduction and conclusion, four chapters examine different aspects of Raphael’s creative genius. Though their titles – “Creation,” “Imitation,” “Natural Artifice,” and “Invention” – suggest a thematic approach, the chapters themselves follow the standard chronological sequence . . . La Malfa’s deep knowledge about the modes of rediscovery of the antique in Renaissance Rome is brilliantly on display.
'Renaissance Quarterly
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There's a welcome sense of energy to this "partial life" of the artist that's sure to please art lovers, history buffs and Italophiles alike. It's almost as if Raphael's enthusiasm for antiquity seeps through the luxuriously glossy pages.
'Newcastle Herald
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For centuries artists and the wider public viewed ancient art through the eyes of Raphael. Claudia La Malfa has provided a well-informed, accessible and original account of his engagement with that art, skilfully integrated in a wider discussion of his career and achievements.
'Charles Hope, Emeritus Professor, The Warburg Institute
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Raphael’s revolutionary kinship with the antique is unprecedented in its depth and intensity. In her well researched, clarifying work Claudia La Malfa offers a highly balanced appraisal of his thorough study of Roman monuments, as well as of his astonishing artistic intuition and experimental brilliance.
'Salvatore Settis, chair of the Conseil Scientifique, Musée du Louvre, Paris
Introduction
1 Creation
2 Imitation
3 Natural Artifice
4 Invention
Conclusion
References
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
Index
Claudia La Malfa teaches History of Art at the Loyola University Chicago in Rome, and is Visiting Lecturer at the University of Kent. Her previous publications include Pintoricchio a Roma. La seduzione dell’antico (2009).