In the end walls the
openings, large windows much higher than the doors, become of such
importance that the whole nature of the problem is changed. It is the
pierced lunette that is to be dealt with, and Raphael has dealt with it
in two entirely different ways. One wall is symmetrical, the window in
the middle, and on that wall he painted the "Parnassus" (Pl. 15), Apollo
and the Muses in the centre with groups of poets a little lower on
either side and other groups filling the spaces to right and left of the
window head. At first sight the design seems less symmetrical and formal
than the others, with a lyrical freedom befitting the subject, but in
reality it is no less perfect in its ponderation. The group of trees
above Apollo and the reclining figures either side of him accent the
centrality of his position. From this point the line of heads rises in
either direction to the figures of Homer and of the Muse whose back is
turned to the spectator, and the perpendicularity of these two figures
carries upward into the arch the vertical lines of the window. From this
point the lateral masses of foliage take up the drooping curve and unite
it to the arch, and this curve is strongly reinforced by the building up
toward either side of the foreground groups and by the disposition of
the arms of Sappho and of the poets immediately behind her, while, to
disguise its formality, it is contradicted by the long line of Sappho's
body, which echoes that of the bearded poet immediately to the right of
the window and gives a sweep to the left to the whole lower part of the
composition.
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