'...an extremely handsome exhibition catalogue....really more of a book on Raphael than it is a guide to the exhibition.'

This magnificent book traces the dramatic evolution of Raphael's style, from his earliest work as a competent master of provincial church decoration in Urbino to his later, masterful paintings in Rome. With beautiful colour illustrations of more than 90 of the artist's paintings and drawings, accompanied by detailed catalogue entries and informative essays by distinguished scholars, the book is destined to become a classic text on this revered Renaissance artist.

Included in the book are discussions of Raphael's origins in Urbino, his earliest influences, and his first works for churches in Umbria and the Marches. The influence of Leonardo and Micelangelo on the young artist as well as the flourishing of his art under the enlightened patronage of Pope Julius II are also studied in detail. The book concludes with two short essays on Raphael's great Vatican frescoes and with a look at the artist's longstanding reputation and the presence of his work in many great British collections.

Raphael: From Urbino to Rome accompanies the first major exhibition of paintings and drawings by Raphael ever to be held in Britain. The show is on view at the National Gallery, London, from October 20, 2004, to January 16, 2005.
Published by the National Gallery Company Ltd. and distributed by Yale University Press.

Hugo Chapman is Assistant Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum; Tom Henry is an independent scholar; Carol Plazzotta is Myojin Curator of Italian Renaissance Painting 1500-1600 at the National Gallery, London; Jill Dunkerton is a restorer in the National Gallery's Conservation Department; Arnold Nesselrath is an art historian and restorer based at the Vatican Museum, Rome; and Nicholas Penny is Senior Curator of Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

2008-05-28 The name conspicuously absent from the cuckoo-clock speech in `The Third Man'

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.