'Raphael' at the National Gallery

The big exhibition at the National Gallery is all about Raphael, with works on display from across his career. Raphael is one of the big three of the high renaissance and stands beside Leonardo and Michelangelo in the pantheon of the greats in artistic achievement. Where they both lived long lives, Raphael died at the age of 37 in 1520 so who knows what he might have gone on to achieve? The National Gallery is blessed in having a good selection of his paintings in its collection and these are added to by works from around the world creating a rather large exhibition. 

The exhibition starts in Room 1 beside the portico entrance and then winds through other rooms so the Gallery is using the Getty entrance as the way into the exhibition. Exhibitions are usually in the purpose built exhibition space downstairs in the Sainsbury Wing but I like it when they use other spaces for exhibitions since it changes the atmosphere of the place. It's appropriate that these old paintings are on the original walls of the Gallery.

One of the first paintings you see is a small head of Saint Sebastian painted when Raphael was about 20 years old. Not for Raphael the usual near naked figure with arrows in him, he shows us a rather plump-cheeked saint idly playing with an arrow wearing sumptuous robes. The colours are gorgeous and immediately attracted me from across the room. Another early painting that immediately drew my eye was a small Saint George fighting the poor dragon. I liked the broken lance, the genteel landscape, the princess running away in the distance and just look at that big, barrel-chested horse - that's a war horse and half! The painting is about 12" x 9" and in an interesting tabernacle-style wooden frame. I'd be happy to have it on my wall but I'd be on the dragon's side.

As you'd expect, there are quite a few Virgin and Child paintings with various saints. I think my favourite was the round 'Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist' (also known as 'The Alba Madonna'). It's quite an arresting painting with rather over-muscled infants but what kept me looking were the eyes of all three characters - just look at their sharp gazes. Mary and the infant John are looking at the cross the Child is playing with, his future foretold, while the Child looks at John, the cousin who will later baptise him. Set in a gentle rural landscape with buildings in the background, not the sometimes harsh landscapes painters imagined they were like in the Holy Land or overly lush Tuscan landscapes, it's a bit pared back and all the better for it. 

Imagine my surprise when I walked into another room and 'The School of Athens' filled one of the walls at almost full scale. The painting is a fresco in a private room in the Vatican so it's actually painted onto/into the wall but it was still a delight to see this reproduction. It's debated, but I choose to believe that Raphael painted his fellow masters in this painting with Leonardo centre stage as Aristotle, a brooding Michelangelo on the steps and a self-portrait of himself just coming into the scene on the right. He's the new boy in town after all. 

The exhibition includes some of Raphael's delicate drawings, some on loan from the Ashmolean that held a great exhibition of his drawings a few years ago. Something I didn't know about Raphael is that he also started to produce prints, taking his lead from Durer. This was a very good way of getting his name more widely known and people who couldn't afford a painting might be able to acquire a print. Here is 'The Judgement of Paris' with an awful lot going on.

A large painting that caught me eye, mainly due to the composition, was 'Saint Cecilia with Saints Paul, John the Evangelist, Augustine and Mary Magdalene'. They're almost life-sized but there's a gap above and below them. Saint Cecilia is the patron saint of music but she is so enthralled by the heavenly music above that she drops all her instruments to the ground. I think my favourite part of the painting is the pile of musical instruments that are all so delicately and realistically painted. I also like the almost haughty Magdalene who, unusually, has her hair covered.

There is a room dedicated to Raphael's tapestry designs that, interestingly, had to be drawn backwards so when they were made up by the expert weavers in Bruges they could come out as a mirror image and the right way round. The V&A has the huge cartoons for some of the tapestries he designed for the Sistine Chapel in St Peter's at the Vatican. There is also a small room about Raphael's architectural work. He did a bit of everything it seems.

The final room is given over to Raphael's portraiture. Apparently he was too busy to do many portraits but did important political portraits and portraits of his friends. There's an extravagant portrait of Lorenzo de Medici in incredible fabrics but the painting I'll show is much simpler, his 'Self Portrait with Giulio Romano', possibly completed in the year Raphael died. Romano was one of Raphael's main assistants and the pose suggests that Raphael is almost saying if you get a Romano painting it's like you have one of mine, he's that good. It's quite a touching painting and sad when you realise he died shorty after completing it.

A final painting is the poster boy for the exhibition, one of Raphael's good friends 'Bindo Altoviti' on loan from the National Gallery of Art in Washington. It's a very delicate painting, just look at the strands of hair and the light hair growing on his cheek, so much detail added for his friend.

It's a very good exhibition and bigger than I was expecting. Highly recommended.