13), the earlier of the two, has
the more connection with the art of the past. The use of gilded relief
in the upper part recalls the methods of Pintoricchio, and the hint of
the whole arrangement was doubtless taken from those semidomes which
existed in many churches. But what an original idea it was to transform
the flat wall of a room into the apse of a cathedral, and what a
solemnity it imparts to the discussion that is going on! The upper part
is formal in the extreme, as it need be for the treatment of such a
theme, but even here there is variety as well as stateliness in the
attitudes and the spacing. In the lower part the variety becomes almost
infinite, yet there is never a jar--not a line or a fold of drapery that
mars the supreme order of the whole. Besides the uncounted cherubs which
float among the rays of glory or support the cloudy thrones of the
saints and prophets, there are between seventy and eighty figures in
the picture; yet the hosts of heaven and the church on earth seem
gathered about the altar with its sacred wafer--the tiny circle which is
the focus of the great composition and the inevitable goal of all
regards, as it is the central mystery of Catholic dogma.
[Illustration: Plate 13.--Raphael. The "Disputa."
In the Vatican.]
Opposite, in the "School of Athens" (Pl.
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