Raphael: From Urbino to Rome (National Gallery London)

Beautiful!

I was very fortunate to get this book at this price.I had seen the exhibition at the National Gallery,and regretted not buying it then,so I was delighted to find it. It is in perfect condition,and I will enjoy looking at it for a long time. Many thanks.

Great book great price and great condition

The title of this review comes from Tom Lubbock's admirably disparaging piece in `The Independent' concerning the 2004 exhibition at the National Gallery, of which this book is a catalogue. The book is as sumptuously illustrated and as beautifully produced as one would expect from such an organisation. My review will hopefully show how anyone who loves or has a vague appreciation of Raphael's oeuvre will find in these pages enough to satisfy taste and feeling. As a book qua book, it more than lives up to its task and is probably worthy of five stars, and here's how.The excellent opening introductory essay (over 46 pages) is a biography of his artistic progress through central Italy. It covers his beginnings with his father, and the artists Perugino and Pintoricchio in Urbino, and then progresses all the way through to Raphael's arrival in Rome, via Citta di Castello, Perugia, and Florence, where he learned from the works of his contemporaries, Leonardo and Michelangelo. The exhibition and this catalogue end at the time of the death of Raphael's patron, Pope Julius II, in 1513. The artist had seven more years to live.This introduction features reproductions of Raphael's and others' works (altar pieces, madonnas, secular portraits, mythological scenes, etc) that were unable to be present at the exhibition but were of obvious importance, the highlight of which must be the four frescoes that adorn the walls of the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican. In this extensive essay we learn of Raphael's artistic development and the changes he made to his methods. We also learn about his relationships with fellow artists, teachers and patrons, but precious little about his private life.The catalogue itself has 101 entries, including works by his father, Giovanni Santi (3), Pintorricchio (1), Perugino (6), Leonardo (2), and Michelangelo (1). Also included are some of Raphael's preparatory sketches, cartoons and metalpoint studies. Direct comparisons are made between Raphael drawings and the works of Leonardo (the pose of his female portraits) and Michelangelo (the extreme contrapposto). The accompanying commentaries to each entry in the catalogue are detailed. Reference is often made to figures elsewhere in the book, especially the introductory essay, and it would have been helpful to have included the relevant page number.At the end of the catalogue there are two further essays: `Raphael and Pope Julius II', elucidating the painter's initial Roman connections and his relationship with the pontiff; and `Raphael and the Early Victorians', which shows how his paintings "possessed a power to inspire and to comfort".So, why only three stars? I attended the exhibition, but like Tom Lubbock, I found it difficult to relate to the artist's work. Here is not the place to argue why, suffice to say that the Pre-Raphaelites had the right idea, if only nominally: give me Bellini and Carpaccio any day. I learned much from this volume, about Raphael and about his art, and about his influences, and about his methods. But I did not learn to love either him or his work.