Transfiguration (Raphael)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Transfiguration

Raphael, 1518-1520

oil on wood

405 × 278 cm

Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican City

The Transfiguration is considered the last painting by the Italian High Renaissance master Raphael. It was left unfinished by Raphael, and supposedly completed by his pupil, Giulio Romano, and is now housed in the Pinacoteca Vaticana of Vatican City.

The work was commissioned by the cardinal Giulio de Medici in competition with Sebastiano del Piombo's painting of the Raising of Lazarus, for the French cathedral of Narbonne: the cardinal was sure that he could get an excellent picture by both. The painting remained in Rome, in the church of San Pietro in Montorio. It was taken to Paris by French troops in 1797, but after 1815 it was brought back in the present location.

The composition is divided in two distinct parts. The upper part of the painting shows the Transfiguration itself on Mount Tabor, with the transfigured Christ floating over some softly illuminated clouds, together with Moses and Elijah. In the lower part, Raphael pictured the miracle of the Possessed Boy waiting for the cure, surrounded by the Apostles and the disciples.

Some drawings and the restoration work of 1977 showed that Raphael had tried some variants.

A mosaic copy of the painting was installed in St. Peter's Basilica in 1767.

The exaggerated miming of the lower part, which also differentiates for his more obscure colours, is considered to be a prefiguration of Mannerism.

[edit] Interpretations

The philosopher Nietzsche interpreted the painting in his book The Birth of Tragedy as an image of the conflict between Apollonian and Dionysian principles.