The School of Athens

In the move The Agony and the Ecstasy, the pope commissioned Raphael to finish the Sistine Chapel when Michelangelo wasn’t feeling so good. This could have enraged him to have another artist finish his

The School of Athens is a fresco done by Raphael around 1510-12 in the Stanza della Segnatura, St. Peters for Bramante. It is a large figure group situated within a linear perspectival environment. Two main figures, Aristotle and Plato stand in the center of the large figure group in the background. There are two smaller figure groups on the left and right in the foreground. In contrast, the Adoration of the Magi, painted by Leonardo da Vinci around 1481-2 is a large figure group with a central triangular figure group. In the background on the left are ruins of a building and men on horseback fighting. Leonardo was commissioned by monks of San Donato a Scopeto in Florence, however, was left unfinished by Leonardo when he left for Milan.

One of the most famous painter and sculptors of the Italian Renaissance, the age of renewal and cultural achievement circa 1500, was the artistic genius Michelangelo Buonarroti. The man that desired nothing but perfection often reached it in his work. He captured the motion of the human figure and the anatomy of muscles in a way that was increasingly beautiful and startlingly realistic. Whether because of one of the most famous sculptures in history, “the David” or the paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, that became the textbook examples for the art period of High Renaissance, Michelango’s art changed the world and he will continue to be studied with awe throughout history.

The Athenian society was known as the most powerful society and well-developed city in the ancient Greek world. The Athenian Society was also known for their brilliant innovations in a lot of fields of life that are still being used in today’s life. Those fields of life include literature, poetry, drama, theatre, schools, buildings, and government. The fact that Athenian society being the strongest and brilliant society in the Ancient Greek time makes it become the most interesting society to study about. This society has a lot to offer in terms of its history and culture. To really see what the Athenian Society look like, we have to look at some important factors. Those

Ross King’s Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling narrates the four years from 1508-1512 that Michelangelo spent laboring over the immense project handed to him; to fresco the 12,000 square foot ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. King’s book describes the battles that Michelangelo faced; the internal struggles, political turmoil and rivalries among fellow artist that encompassed his surroundings. Michelangelo’s battles with his health, family problems, financial burdens, rival artists and the ever impatient Pope are told in great detail by King. King also provides precise artistic descriptions of the process required to fresco scenes so magnificent they are considered one of the greatest artistic masterpieces of all time.

Michelangelo’s significance to art history is enormous. Michelangelo's output in every field during his long life was prodigious; when the sheer volume of correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences that survive is also taken into account, he is the best-documented artist of the 16th century. He created two of the most influential works in fresco in the history of Western art, the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling and The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. He then later on in life designed the dome of St. Peter's Basilica in the same city and revolutionized classical architecture with his use of the giant order of pilasters. In a demonstration of Michelangelo's unique standing, he was the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive. This shows how much significance he has and how much his art works influenced the world. His Sistine Chapel ceiling painting shows the significance he had to the church and Christianity. His works signify religion, but to a more explicit level. In his lifetime he was also often called Il Divino ("the divine one") . One of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his terribilità, a sense of awe-inspiring grandeur, and it was the attempts of subsequent artists to imitate Michelangelo's impassioned and highly personal style. His significance caused for him to have a lasting impact on the

Raphael made many very detailed paintings. My choices for his most contributing paintings are The School of Athens, The Sistine Madonna, and The Marriage of The Virgin. They were just a few of the many amazing paintings that Raphael has painted. The School of Athens was possibly Raphael’s most popular painting. It shows representations of many mathematicians, philosophers, and scientists of the Renaissance. The two people walking down the middle of the hall are Aristotle and Plato who were very important contributors to the way of western thinking, and in different ways, their philosophies were incorporated into Christianity. Plato is holding the book called The Timaeus. Plato points up because in his philosophy the changing world that we see around us is just a shadow of a higher, truer reality that is eternal and unchanging (and include things like goodness and beauty). Aristotle holds his hand down, because in his philosophy, the only reality is the reality that we can see and

Michelangelo’s Bathers, though a mere sketch for a never-executed fresco, causes an enormous artistic uprising in Florence and its surrounding areas. His “wholly different art” intrigues painters all around Italy, with mixed reactions of fascination and wrath. Talented young artists including Raphael Sanzio and Sebastiano de Sangallo are moved to “start back at the beginning” and rethink their techniques and knowledge of painting (Stone 435). Michelangelo applies this same talent to the Sistine ceiling at the request of Pope Julius II to create his most religious piece of work, a documentation of God’s creation of the world and an illustration of the artist’s belief in God. Michelangelo in essence becomes a self-appointed god himself as he praises His supreme power and pays homage to the Creation. Instead of complying to previously stipulated artistic norms, Buonarroti displays his own trademark of complex nude figures while at the same time combining Greek ideals and Christian morals. Michelangelo also paints the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, another selection of his art that was awarded with mixed reactions from the public. Michelangelo’s work in the Sistine chapel was completed in the early and mid-1500’s, but it remains some of the most well-known and respected Renaissance art. Contrary to Lorenzo’s theory that the “finest flowering [arts] of every age are torn down, broken, [and] burned by the next” (Stone 179), the art of Michelangelo survives as a result of his resilient

Due to exhaustion and a loss after many years of war with Sparta, the place that meant everything to Socrates was changing. The city of Athens was known to be a place of free exchange of ideas, intellectualism, and communication, but it was rapidly becoming a place in which alertness was a priority when it came to expressing ideas. Socrates strove to stimulate the way people thought, he believed in critical thinking over having a set of rules to live by. Socrates way of thinking made him appear dangerous in a sense and he was faced with the dilemma of having to exile Athens or death. Socrates chose death. In my opinion, Socrates chose to stay in Athens and go through trial knowing the consequences he would face because of his character. He

One can see this throughout the works of Michelangelo but nowhere more so than in his work on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. In his Creation of Adam fresco, there is the kinetic energy of God that is in contrast to the lifeless form of Adam. Some scholars say that this is Christianity's greatest pictorial work. Through this work one can see Michelangelo’s divine characteristics (High Renaissance Painting: Characteristics, Aesthetics). The Sistine Chapel ceiling also includes dramatic movements, bold colors, books of prophecy, and male nude figures. It shows the optimism and elegance of this time period. It demonstrates the intellectual and emotional power as well as the new found appreciation of ancient world that was so focused on during the Renaissance (Michelangelo, Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel | Michelangelo |Khan Academy). It is in his work on the ceiling that one can see what a self-taught master of fresco painting he

Catholicism and the story of Christ are key components of the Italian Renaissance. Many of the most popular works of art from this area employ some sort of biblical theme. Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna” is no exception to this trend.

The city of Athens is the capital city of Greece and is also Greece’s largest city. The city is full of rich history dating back to 3000 B.C and still stands to this very day. Athens is full of amazing archeological landmarks, beautiful views of the mountains and oceans. Many people visit Athens or Greece in general for the history that it holds. Athens, with many of the historical sites still standing, shows the ability of the ancient athenian people to make long lasting builds to stand against time itself.

Throughout this section I was exposed to what it was like to live during ancient times. Something that stood out to me was that Athens had the first democracy, the form of government we use today in the United States. It’s amazing to me, to see once again how the past has shaped our future. Luckily, not everything is the same as it was in the past and the world has further progressed as, in Athens women were not treated as equal to men and slaves were used.

Depicting all the great philosophers of the ancient world gathering within a Christian Basilica, and being overlooking by the Greek gods, Raphael was able to bridge the gap between pagan and Christian philosophies. He used elaborate colors and shadowing to form each individual character. The paintings backdrop provides it with sense of linear perspective and provide all the central elements of Renaissance art. It is very symbolic that many of the ancient philosophers are model after the Renaissance artist, for they were now the world great philosophers within their own right. After completion of the School of Athens, Raphael represent what the Italian Renaissance movement was all about.

On the wall under Theology is the Disputà, representing a group discussing the mystery of the Trinity. The famous School of Athens, on the wall beneath Philosophy, portrays an open architectural space in which Plato, Aristotle, and other ancient philosophers are engaged in discourse. On the wall under Poetry is the Parnassus, in which the Greek god Apollo appears surrounded by the Muses and the great poets. (Paoletti, 347) Others describe the frescoes in the Stanze as “related to three fundamental ideas of Christian Platonism, The True, The Good and The Beautiful. The Disputa corresponds to theological or revealed truth, and the School of Athens to philosophical or rational truth; the frescoes of the Virtues, canon law and civil law correspond to the Good; and the Parnassus to the Beautiful.” (Daley, 114)