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"The fifty-eight figures
who occupy this architectural space impressive for its grandeur, luxury
and sobriety are all; busily doing precisely what philosophers always
do when they are acting as philosophers: they are reading, writing,
lecturing, arguing, demonstrating, questioning, listening, pondering,
admiring, doubting." (Most, 146)
"It requires an effort of
the historical imagination to recognize that this was not an inevitable,
or even likely, way to represent philosophy in the first decade of the
sixteenth century." (Most, 146) Most artists depicted philosophy
allegorically before Raphael. Raphael did not paint The School of Athens
to depict philosophy and its philosophers with allegory.
"The School of Athens represents the truth acquired through reason. Raphael does not entrust his illustration to allegorical figures, as was customary in the 14th and 15th centuries. Rather, he groups the solemn figures of thinkers and philosophers together in a large, grandiose architectural framework. This framework is characterized by a high dome, a vault with lacunar ceiling and pilasters. It is probably inspired by late Roman architecture or - as most critics believe - by Bramante's project for the new St Peter's which is itself a symbol of the synthesis of pagan and Christian philosophies." (Kren)
"Some of the figures shown in The School of Athens can easily be interpreted as practitioners of some of the seven liberal arts. A geometer and an astronomer are prominently displayed in the right foreground."(Most, 153) "If Raphael's intention was to portray the seven liberal arts, he was evidently so incompetent that to this day his intention could not be understood clearly and unmistakably. Hence this could not have been his intention." (Most, 154)
"Raphael's The School of Athens contains almost sixty human figures, all highly individualized in their appearance and gestures and intensely and dramatically concentrated upon their activities." (Most, 155)
"To be sure, the genesis of any great work of art, like that of any human action whatsoever, cannot be entirely explained: what is more, the state of evidence for determining the origins of a fresco painted almost five centuries ago is highly lacunose." (Most, 157) Trying to evaluate a painting that is centuries old is a difficult task because one will never be able to fully depict what the painter was trying to show in his or her painting and the reasoning behind it.
"Yet the problem of who exactly is depicted in this grand work
is compounded by the fact that Raphael did not leave any
personal notes on his program, and there is no contemporary
documentation to clarify the question." (Bell, 639)
"Nor was there
any established artistic convention, either real or imaginary,
in the early sixteenth century for representing these ancient
philosophers." (Bell, 639)
Yes. According to Vasari it does. "Vasari says the picture shows theologians engaged in the reconciliation of Philosophy and Astrology with Theology. In the work all the sages of the world are depicted, arranged in different groups, and occupied with various disputations. There are certain astrologers standing apart who have made figures and characters of geomancy and astrology, on tablets which they send by beautiful angels to the evangelists who explain them. St. Matthew is copying the characters from the tablet which an angel holds before him, and setting them down in a book." (Gutman, 420) Vasari's words are trustworthy because he had met older contemporaries and pupils of the master.
"The painting celebrates classical thought, but it is also dedicated to the liberal arts, symbolized by the statues of Apollo and Minerva. Grammar, Arithmetic and Music are personified by figures located in the foreground, at left. Geometry and Astronomy are personified by the figures in the foreground, at right. Behind them stand characters representing Rhetoric and Dialectic. Some of the ancient philosophers bear the features of Raphael's contemporaries. Bramante is shown as Euclid (in the foreground, at right, leaning over a tablet and holding a compass). Leonardo is, as we said, probably shown as Plato. Francesco Maria Della Rovere appears once again near Bramante, dressed in white. Michelangelo, sitting on the stairs and leaning on a block of marble, is represented as Heraclitus. A close examination of the intonaco shows that Heraclitus was the last figure painted when the fresco was completed, in 1511. The allusion to Michelangelo is probably a gesture of homage to the artist, who had recently unveiled the frescoes of the Sistine Ceiling. Raphael - at the extreme right, with a dark hat - and his friend, Sodoma, are also present (they exemplify the glorification of the fine arts and they are posed on the same level as the liberal arts)." (Kren)
"Hall herself states that the School of Athens 'cannot be studied in isolation, for it is part of the decoration of a room'. That room known as the Stanza della Segnatura, has been persuasively identified by Shearman as Julius II's library, and the fresco decoration Julius commissioned for it, designed and executed largely by Raphael between 1508 and 1511, was in brilliance of achievement the counterpart of Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling." (Shepherd, 181)
"The fresco achieved immediate success. Its beauty and its thematic unity were universally accepted. The enthusiasm with which it was received was not marred by reservations, as was the public reaction to the Sistine Ceiling." (Kren)
