Among his latest works were the pendentives of the Farnesina, with the
story of Cupid and Psyche--works painted and even drawn by his pupils,
coarse in types and heavy in color but altogether astonishing in freedom
and variety of design. The earlier painters covered their vaulting
with ornamental patterns in which spaces were reserved for independent
pictures, like the rectangles of the Stanza della Segnatura. It was a
bold innovation when Michelangelo discarded this system and placed in
the pendentives of the Sistine his colossal figures of the Prophets and
the Sibyls, each on its architectural throne. It was reserved for
Raphael to take a step that no earlier painter could have dreamed of and
to fill these triangular spaces with free groups relieved against a
clear sky which is the continuous background of the whole series. One
may easily think the earlier system more architecturally fitting, but
the skill with which these groups are composed, their perfect
naturalness, their exhaustless variety, the perfection with which they
fill these awkward shapes, as it were inevitably and without effort, is
nothing short of amazing. It is decoration of a festal and informal
order--the decoration of a kind of summer house, fitted for pleasure,
rather than of a stately chamber--but it is decoration the most
consummate, the fitting last word of the greatest master of decorative
design that the world has seen.
Pages:
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97