The School of Athens (detail)

The School of Athens is an enormous wet fresco by Raphael, one of the three giants of the High Renaissance, painted between 1510 and 1511, measuring 6,172 cm x 2,794 cm, now in the Vatican Museum.In 1508, the young Raphael was introduced to the Pope by a close friend in Rome when Julius II, the newly appointed Pope, was about to redecorate the Vatican Palace. The Pope was looking for a skilled painter to paint his frescoes and finally chose Raphael. 

The School of Athens is themed after the Academy of Athens, built by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, depicting a lively scene of philosophers, scientists, and artists conducting academic discussions in The School of Athens. Instead of the usual rigid composition of large frescoes, The School of Athens divides the figures into two rows, presenting an inverted pyramidal structure. As a result, the painting feels very stable, although each person is standing loosely. The painting is set against a backdrop of an archway reaching straight up to the blue sky, giving the painting an extraordinarily sacred atmosphere. The use of perspective adds more depth to the space and adds realistic visual effects to the painting. The figures are orderly painted, making them more realistic and lively, bringing the viewers into the sages. The magnificent stage and the numerous figures, the vivid gestures and expressions, and the harmonious, changing, and unified rhythm of the layout can be said to bring the painting to the peak of the Renaissance.

The steady and elegant colors in the painting add to the expressiveness of the work. With the creamy yellow marble as the background, the red, white, yellow, blue, purple, and other different colors of clothing of each figure integrate, creating a harmonious color balance. More importantly, it echoes the theme of the academic debate expressed in the picture, showing an intense atmosphere that became an unparalleled model for later classicists. Presumably, due to the composition of The School of Athens, Raphael paints philosophers in the fields of philosophy, rhetoric, logic, mathematics, geometry, astronomy, and music with their own "souls," creating a perfect combination of color and spiritual content in the fresco.

The charm of Raphael's works is not only reflected in the organization and arrangement of the numerous figures but is also reflected in every detail, every line, showing the ideal beauty that ancient Greek art pursued from beginning to end, shaping the idea of beauty in his heart into flesh and blood.

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