The midsummer of Italian art . Raphaelsmagnetism. Grimm, on the contrary, declares thatSebastian never could have risen to so high a flight. This much is certain. The woman representedhere could not possibly have been the Fornarina ofItalian social mythology. The absence of a goodchiaroscuro makes it evident that the portrait waspainted during the first decade of the sixteenthcentury, and we know that Raphaels acquaintancewith the Fornarina did not begin for several yearslater. It has none of the characteristics of theRoman school of painting—especially its roundedsolidity. This woman, though
The midsummer of Italian art . Raphaelsmagnetism. Grimm, on the contrary, declares thatSebastian never could have risen to so high a flight. This much is certain. The woman representedhere could not possibly have been the Fornarina ofItalian social mythology. The absence of a goodchiaroscuro makes it evident that the portrait waspainted during the first decade of the sixteenthcentury, and we know that Raphaels acquaintancewith the Fornarina did not begin for several yearslater. It has none of the characteristics of theRoman school of painting—especially its roundedsolidity. This woman, though perhaps not highlyeducated, is evidently superior to the contadinaclass. She might have been a member of the upper-middle class, though perhaps not in fashionable so-ciety. The bearing is proud, and she seems to beconscious of a stable position in the world; whollydifferent from the expression of the Fornarina in theBarberini Palace. Neither is it more likely that she could haveserved as a model ror the Sistine Madonna. The. MADONNA OF THE MEADOWBV RAPHAEL Belvedere, Vienna The Evolution of Raphael. 195 difference in the shape of their heads, as well as thecontour of their features, forbids us from supposingthis. She has not the long oval face of the enrapt-ured beauty at Dresden, and the height of herforehead, the length of her nose, and the distancebetween her nose and her chin are almost the same(a proportion more common among men thanwomen), while the nose of the Sistine Madonna isfully two fifths the length of her face,—her mouthand chin being unusually small. The expression ofthis portrait is of a bright, keen-witted person, fullyconscious of her advantages in life, and intendingto make good use of them; not an elevated nature,but a fine example of the more practical sort. Shemay not be worldly herself, but she understands theworld and how to deal with it. The portrait is beautiful in spite of its faults. Ithas no chiaroscuro worth speaking of. The featuresare drawn r
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Keywords: ., bookauthorstearnsf, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1911
