Stanza della Segnatura: The School of Athens Raphael (1483-1520)

Description of Raphael Santi’s fresco The School of Athens

Raphael Santi (1483- 1520) was a great Italian painter and graphic artist. The fresco The School of Athens. - One of four frescoes for the Papal Palace at the Vatican, painted by the great Raphael during the High Renaissance. Refinement and fluidity of lines, rounded contours, complex poses, angles, and rhythm-balanced compositional formulas combine in a fresco by the great Master.

The earthly activity of man, the harmony of the physical body and spiritual content in the pompous architectural backgrounds of the palace, the impeccable sense of rhythm and proportions. It is hard to believe that the 25-year-old representative of the Umbrian school of painting, dominated by the principles of the early Renaissance was able to perform such a global work. In his fresco, Raphael Santi combined all the philosophers and thinkers known at the time, from Diogenes, Heraclitus and Epicurus to the disciples of Plato and Socrates. In all, the fresco depicts more than 50 figures. Titans, persons equal to God, according to Renaissance worldviews.

The prototype for the School of Athens was the Academy founded by Plato in Athens in the 4th century B.C., whose students held their debates in the open air in an olive grove. In the beautiful, antique temple with its airy and luminous architecture, truth is born and triumphs over man, as does the bright blue sky visible in the system of arched vaults above the philosophers’ heads. "Truth is born in argument," said the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. The philosophers in the fresco are also arguing, but without designating a winner. The diversity of personal human opinions and individual philosophical currents was brought together and depicted in his fresco by Raphael Santi.

"The School of Athens. - is the true legacy that the artist Santi left for his descendants, edifyingly demonstrating proper and wholesome human activity.