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The School of Athens
The School of Athens, or in Italian, is one of the most famous paintings by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It was painted between 1510 and 1511 as a part of Raphael's commission to decorate with frescoes the rooms now known as the , in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. The was the first of the rooms to be decorated, and The School of Athens the second painting to be finished there, after , on the opposite wall. The picture has long been seen as "Raphael's masterpiece and the perfect embodiment of the classical spirit of the High Renaissance."[1]
Program, subject, figure identifications, interpretationsThe title "School of Athens" is an old tour-book?s invention, which tends to obscure the painting?s immediate context and meaning. It is actually one of a group on the four walls of the Stanza (those on either side centrally interrupted by windows) that depict distinct themes of knowledge. Each theme is identified above by a separate tondo containing a majestic female figure seated in the clouds, with putti bearing the phrases: ?Seek Knowledge of Causes?, ?Divine Inspiration?, ?Knowledge of Things Divine? (Disputŕ), ?To Each What Is Due?. Accordingly, the figures on the walls below exemplify Philosophy, Poetry (including Music), Theology, Law. [2] 
Commentators have suggested that nearly every great Greek philosopher can be found within the painting, but determining which are depicted is difficult, since Raphael made no designations outside possible likenesses, and no contemporary documents explain the painting.[4] Compounding the problem, Raphael had to invent a system of iconography to allude to various philosophers for whom there were no traditional visual types. For example, while the Socrates figure is immediately recognizable from Classical busts, the alleged Epicurus is far removed from the standard type for that philosopher.[5][6] Nevertheless, there is widespread agreement on the identity of certain figures within the painting.[7] Aside from the identities of the philosophers shown, many aspects of the fresco have been interpreted, but few such interpretations are generally accepted among scholars. The popular idea that the rhetorical gestures of Plato and Aristotle are kinds of pointing (to the heavens, and down to earth) is a likely reading. However Plato?s Timaeus--which is the book Raphael places in his hand--was a sophisticated treatment of space, time and change, including the Earth, which guided mathematical sciences for over a millennium. Aristotle, with his four elements theory, held that all change on Earth was owing to the motions of the heavens. In the painting Aristotle carries his Ethics, which he denied could be a scientific study. It is not established how much the young Raphael knew of ancient philosophy, what guidance he might have had from people such as Bramante, or what detailed program may have been dictated by the Papal sponsor. Heinrich Wölfflin observed that "it is quite wrong to attempt interpretations of the School of Athens as an esoteric treatise ... The all-important thing was the artistic motive which expressed a physical or spiritual state, and the name of the person was a matter of indifference" in Raphael's time.[8] What is evident is Raphael's artistry in orchestrating a beautiful space, continuous with that of viewers in the Stanza, in which a great variety of human figures, each one expressing "mental states by physical actions", interact, and are grouped in a "polyphony" unlike anything in earlier art, in the ongoing dialogue of Philosophy.[9] The figuresThe identity of some of the philosophers in the picture, such as Plato or Aristotle, is uncontroversial. But scholars disagree on many of the other figures, some of whom have double identities as ancients and as figures contemporary to Raphael. The extent of double portrayals is uncertain although, for example, that Michelangelo is portrayed (no. 13 below) is generally accepted.[10] According to Lahanas,[11] they are usually identified as follows: 
The bracketed names are the contemporary characters from whom Raphael is thought to have drawn his likenesses.
1: Zeno of Citium or Zeno of Elea?
2: Epicurus
3: Federico II of Mantua?
4: Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius or Anaximander or Empedocles?
5: Averroes?
6: Pythagoras?
7: Alcibiades or Alexander the Great?
8: Antisthenes or Xenophon?
9: Hypatia (Francesco Maria della Rovere or Raphael's mistress Margherita)
10: Aeschines or Xenophon?
11: Parmenides?
12: Socrates?
13: Heraclitus (Michelangelo)
14: Plato holding the Timaeus (Leonardo da Vinci)
15: Aristotle holding the Ethics?
16: Diogenes of Sinope?
17: Plotinus?
18: Euclid or Archimedes with students (Bramante)?
19: Strabo or Zoroaster? (Baldassare Castiglione or Pietro Bembo)
20: Ptolemy?
R: Apelles (Raphael)
21: Protogenes (Il Sodoma or Perugino)[12] Central figures (14 and 15)
The settingThe building is in the shape of a Greek cross, which some have suggested was intended to show a harmony between pagan philosophy and Christian theology[13] (see Christianity and Paganism and Christian philosophy). The architecture of the building was inspired by the work of Bramante, who, according to Vasari, helped Raphael with the architecture in the picture.[14] Some have suggested that the building itself was intended to be an advance view of St. Peter's Basilica.[15] There are two sculptures in the background. The one on the left is the god Apollo holding a lyre.[16] Apollo is the god of the Sun, medicine/healing, light, truth, archery, and music. The sculpture on the right is Athena, in her Roman guise as Minerva.[17] Athena was the goddess of wisdom. ReproductionsThe Victoria and Albert Museum has a rectangular version over 4 metres by 8 metres in size, painted on canvas, dated 1755 by Anton Raphael Mengs on display in the eastern Cast Court.[18] A reproduction of the fresco can be seen in the auditorium of Old Cabell Hall at the University of Virginia. Produced in 1900 by George W. Breck to replace an older reproduction that was destroyed in a fire in 1895, it is four inches off scale from the original, because the Vatican would not allow identical reproductions of its art works.[19] Another reproduction, by Neide, is in the Königsberg Cathedral, Kaliningrad.[20] More recently the image was used by the band Guns N' Roses for their 1991 albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II Extracts of the image, chiefly the two figures to the left of Plotinus (figure 17), were extracted by New York artist Mark Kostabi for the cover art. Another reproduction can be found in the University of North Carolina at Asheville's Highsmith University Student Union. One of the newest reproductions of this painting can be found in the seminar room at Baylor University's Brooks College. ReferencesExternal links
Gallery<gallery> Image:Raffael_060.jpg Image:Raffael_070.jpg|Zeno of Citium or Zeno of Elea Image:Sanzio 01 Epicurus.jpg|Epicurus Image:Averroes closeup.jpg|Averroes and Pythagoras Image:Raffael 068.jpg|Pythagoras Image:Raffael 059.jpg|Alcibiades or Alexander the Great and Antisthenes or Xenophon Image:Raffael 065.jpg|Francesco Maria I della Rovere or Raphael's mistress as Hypatia of Alexandria and Parmenides Image:Sanzio_01_Parmenides.jpg|Parmenides Image:Raffael 069.jpg|Aeschines and Socrates Image:Raffael 066.jpg|Michelangelo as Heraclitus Image:Raffael 067.jpg|Leonardo da Vinci as Plato Image:Raffael 061.jpg|Aristotle Image:Raffael 062.jpg|Diogenes Image:Sanzio_01_Euclid.jpg|Bramante as Euclid or Archimedes Image:Raffael_071.jpg|Strabo or Zoroaster, Ptolemy, Raphael as Apelles and Perugino or Timoteo Viti as Protogenes Image:Raphael School of Athens GNR.jpg </gallery>
ar:????? ????? (????) ca:L'escola d'Atenes cs:Athénská ?kola de:Die Schule von Athen es:La escuela de Atenas eo:La Lernejo de Ateno fa:???? ??? (?????) fr:L'École d'Athčnes (Raphaël) id:Sekolah Athena is:Skólinn í Aţenu it:Scuola di Atene (Raffaello) he:?????? ????? jv:Sekolah Atena nl:School van Athene ja:??????? no:Skolen i Athen pl:Szko?a Ate?ska pt:Escola de Atenas ru:???????? ????? sq:Shkolla e Athinës fi:Ateenan koulu vi:Tr??ng Athens zh:???? Source: Wikipedia | The above article is available under the GNU FDL. | Edit this article
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