In the
symmetrically pierced lunette opposite, the distribution of the space
into three distinct but united pictures, the central one seen through
the grating of the prison, is a highly ingenious and, on the whole, an
acceptable variant on previous inventions. But these two are the last of
the Vatican frescoes that show Raphael's infallible instinct as a
composer. He grows tired, exaggerates his mannerisms, gives a greater
and greater share of the work to his pupils. The later Stanze are either
pompous or confused, or both, until we reach the higgledy-piggledy of
the "Burning of the Borgo" or that inextricable tangle, suggestive of
nothing so much as of a dish of macaroni, the "Battle of Constantine," a
picture painted after the master's death, but for which he probably left
something in the way of sketches.
[Illustration: Plate 17.--Raphael. "The Mass of Bolsena."
In the Vatican.]
Yet even in what seems this decadence of his talent Raphael only needed
a new problem to revive his admirable powers in their full splendor. In
1514 he painted the "Sibyls" (Pl. 19) of Santa Maria della Pace, in a
frieze-shaped panel cut by a semicircular arch, and the new shape given
him to fill inspired a composition as perfect in itself and as
indisputably the only right one for the place as anything he ever did.
Pages:
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96