Raphael (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Raphael<br><br>The story of Raphael's life is the story of his triumphant career as an artist. It reads, indeed, like a creation of fiction, this record of the fortunate youth with beauty and charm of person to aid him, with a mind which could assimilate the best from every master and a hand which could execute with ease that for which others strove, moving in a few years to such eminence that not Michel Angelo, not Leonardo could vie with him in popularity. Merejkowski in his study of Leonardo, The Forerunner has given us an imaginary meeting between the two in the last days of the older and failing master of Raphael, beautiful, exquisitely dressed, surrounded as he always was by a crowd of pupils and admirers, riding by on his way from his own palatial home to visit Pope Leo X, his patron. It is a true picture if Vasari's record be accepted. The other painters laboured and agonised in their work, haggled with their patrons, were worried for lack of money and stinted for supplies. Raphael's patrons overwhelmed him with commissions and paid him princely sums; his pupils adored him; Rome worshipped him. "Not only was he followed by men, but even the very animals," says Vasari, "would constantly follow his steps and always loved him." And when he died, not only Rome but all Europe was stricken with sense of loss. In his thirty-seven years of life he had conquered the world.<br><br>His reputation has scarcely nickered from that day to our own. Ingres could say: "Never shall I feel humble save before Raphael and Nature," and something of that attitude of awe seems to imbue every utterance about the artist.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.