Vatican Museum

Welcome to the Vatican Museum Pinacoteca, also known as the picture gallery. This portion of the museum consists of eighteen rooms with works ranging from the twelfth through the nineteenth centuries. We will be focusing on the sixteenth century, which consists of the High Renaissance and Mannerism. When I say High Renaissance, I mean that one point perspective has been put into use, which was experimented with during the early Renaissance. During the early High Renaissance, Leonardo was experimenting with figure modeling with shadows, light, and color. He was interested in portraying the world as people see it. Michelangelo was experimenting with more naturalistic sculptures where the muscles flow naturally instead of each one being so defined. Basically, everyone was playing with making art look more natural and idealistically beautiful.

The High Renaissance is truly exemplified by Raphael's School of Athens in the Stanza Della Segnatura. Artists' styles were constantly evolving searching for new ways to portray ideal beauty. After this work, artists started to elongate appendages for a more graceful look. Figures were brought to the foreground and the subject became less important than the beauty of the overall composition. They were also more concerned with making difficult works look easy to create in a timely manner. This ultimately became known as Mannerism. Instead of working for 3 years on a painting, artists involved with Mannerism wanted to spit them out in months.

First, we see the Madonna of Foligno by Raphael, also known as Raffaello Sanzio. The painting's original name was the Madonna in Glory, but the name changed after it moved. Sigismondo de Conti originally commissioned it in 1511 for the altar of the church of Saint Maria in Aracoeli when his house in Foligno was protected miraculously from a lightening bolt during a terrible storm. Then, it was moved to the Monastery of the Contesse in Foligno. It was moved, again, in 1797 because of the Treaty of Tolentino.

On February 19, 1797 the Treaty of Tolentino between Napoleon and Pope Pius VI. The treaty imposed economic and territorial strictures on the Papacy. The papal city of Avignon was ceded to France and artistic treasures from the Vatican went to Paris; over a hundred paintings and other works of art were confiscated. The French had the right to enter any public, religious, or private building to decide what to take back to France. This part of the Treaty was extended to apply to all of Italy in 1798. Finally, the Madonna came back to Rome to join the Vatican Museum's Pinacoteca in 1816 when the Austrian army defeated Napoleon.

The patron of this painting is featured on the right of Saint Jerome who presents him to the Madonna and Child. They are seated on a throne of clouds with a storm rolling in behind them. On the left, Saint John the Baptist points towards the heavenly event that is taking place. Saint Francis kneels next to John praying. A small angel stands in the middle below the Madonna and child holding a plaque with an inscription about the painting's dedication.

Raphael painted this between working on the Stanza Della Segnatura and Heliodorus. It is said that his School of Athens is the epitome of the High Renaissance. In the Madonna, he had already achieved a mature style and was in the midst of experimenting with the use of light. You can also see this in Liberation of Saint Peter. In the Madonna, the light from the orange orb surrounding the throne illuminates the figures in the foreground. It is also interesting that in early paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, Leonardo uses a dark foil behind his figures to bring them out. While he did not have to do this for long before he could do light figures with light backgrounds, Raphael did the opposite. He situates a dark figure in front of a light source and does it realistically.

Now if you'll follow me, we will see the Lament over the Dead Christ by Giovanni Bellini. Unlike Raphael and the other Florentine artists, Bellini came from the Venetian school of painting. Their painting focused more on the use of color and light than actual drawing. The Florentine artists would spend days planning their works making small sketches and cartoons. The Venetians liked winging it, so to speak. This is probably his most important contribution to High Renaissance art. His use of oil paint, instead of the typical tempera, helped him build his figures with light and color instead of just filling in a drawing with paint. The oil paint allowed him to apply layer upon layer because oil paint dries much slower than fresco, which deepened the colors and made them more effect in portraying natural light and shadows. This made his figures more natural. Bellini's figures in this painting almost look molded out of plastic.

The Lament was done for the upper part of the altar of the church of Saint Francesco in Pesaro from 1473 until 1476. Mary Magdalene, Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathaea form a semi-circle around the dead body of Christ they have seated up. The painting has a very sad tone, as you can see Mary Magdalene stroke his hand and examine the wound and Nicodemus props Christ up.

This way, we can view Leonardo da Vinci's Saint Jerome. Much like the Mona Lisa, this painting is shrouded in mystery. We do not know whom it was painted for or where it was to be placed. In fact, the only reason it is attributed to Leonardo is because it has similarities to his Adoration of the Magi. Actually, this work was started right before the Adoration in 1480. They are both under drawings completely devoid of color. The paint that is on the work only serves to create light and shadows. In Leonardo's time, an unfinished work would have never been shown to the public, but Leonardo as everyone knows was a very important artist so all his works are on display somewhere.

Leonardo was also using oil paints for this work. A main theme in Renaissance painting is, not only experimentation with perspectives and figure depictions, but experimenting with different mediums as well. No one is quite certain when oil paints moved from Northern Europe, its birthplace, to Italy, but it came, and a lot of artist liked working with it. Fresco required a quick hand because it dried so fast. Oils allowed the artist to blend and build figures. Later in 1495, Leonardo is commissioned the Last Supper. For this work, he painted with oils and tempera on dry plaster. This experiment failed because it began deteriorating as soon as he began painting. It is a miracle this work still exists.

Now moving along, we have Titian's Madonna with Child and Saints, also known as Madonna of the Frari. This was painted between 1533 and 1535 for the church of Saint NiccolÐ"І dei Frari in Venice. This piece was also confiscated in 1797 and brought to Paris. It