The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1899-12-15
MISS SHOWS ART TALKS
Raphael, the Master of Expression
the Painter Oi the Madonna, the
Happy Man
TIE MASTER OF EXPRESSION.

artist, whether he be poet or painter,
is constantly contradictory to the
rounded symmetry that he upholds.
Yet now and then some happy master
shows in his own personality the
natural exalted human combinations
which he endeavors TO depict, and
such one we find in Raphael,
Raffaele Sanzio D'Urbino, lwho, bet
ter than anyone before or since, was
gifted with the power of making plain
the noblest possibilities of the human
spirit.
Every circumstance ofhis life seems
to have been specially prepared to
show what the happy development of
genius might be. Born into an atmo-
sphere of tenderest love he was from
the fret surrounded by the artistic
opportunities controlled by his father
as leader of the Umbrian school.
And this especial school, expressive
as it was of the teachings of st. Fran
cis of Assissi and permeated with the
spirit of my stical and religious
beauty, was especially adapted to
give the ardent young spirit the most
essential impressions.
AT the age oftwelve he became the
pupil of Perugino. and he very soon
displayed that maturity of thought
and execution which is the dis
tingulshing feature of creative power.
Perugino excelled in his finer work in
purity and precision of expression,
and in technical detail Raphael fol-
lowed his masters methods until he
entered Florence as beautiful young
conqueror and perfected the style of
his second period.
Like the Greek Apelles he laid
every painter of his acquaintance un-
der tribute. Leonardo and Michael
Angelo were employed in their great
rival battle-pieces and he assimilated
from these two transcendent leaders
such elements as he was ready to use,
while he gained from those of minor
note the countless aids which the
great creator appropriates from every
kindred worker. Like Apelies, too,
his charm of manner was irresistible,
and no one could Withstand his rare
attraction except the solitary Angelo,
who later on assisted one of RaphsePs
rivals in contest of skill, only to be
met by unbroken nobility and sweet
ness.
In his simplicity, also, and his
raIght-forwardness, in his love OF
beauty for beauty's own sake, his de-
light in pleasure and his discarding,
except for artistic teaching, all de-
formity and pain, he had the Grecian
spirit. But this was so informed
by the Christian conception of the
purpose and possibilities of the life
about him that ne gave to the highest
Greclan endeavor the fullest Christian
development The Florentlne school
with it's great invention and multi
form learning had much to teach the
eager Raphael in regard to all the
properties and rules of form, but he
carried Italian art to q higher plane
than it had yet known in the value OF
expression.
And thus, in the fullness of his
powers as developed later on in Rome
he became the master of school
which is distinguished by this uiti-
mate force of bearing forth the mean
ing of things, of telling in the most
adequate way a dominant idea.
Ruskin dwells at some length in
his love for the Pre-Raphaelites upon
Raphael's subservience to Popish
power and makes him largely re-
spsnsible for the decline of Italian
painting because of what he calls the
false religious ideal. But no other
critic &c far as l can learn cast such
an aspersion upon him, and the proof
of his unswerving truth lies in the
easy understanding of his work by all
elevation of thought and feeling it al.
ways carries with it. In the univer-
salty of his power, his lightning con-
ception and his ease of execution he
has been compared to Shakespeare
and for harmonious rhythm and
sympathetic appeal Miss Huell likens
him TO Longfellow. 1t is a wide
and comprehensive reach and evades
anything but relative definition, Yet
perhaps there is no closer perception
of his leading note than is apparent
throughout his development in his
large possession of the element We
know as the "eternal womanly."
The pictured head Of the beloved
youth, like the portraits of the bless
ed child which were painted by his
fathers hand, is beautified by this
phase of the creative nature in every
curve and line. Raphael never lack
al viritilV Int IL Ia the VirilitV thai