History of World Art II: Day 31

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known as Raphael, lived from 1483-1520. He was one of the three greatest masters all of whom lived during the High Renaissance. He was born to a courtesan painter in the Central Italian city of Urbino that was small but significant to the arts. He learned to paint from his father, and then masters after he was orphaned at the age of eleven. He was very comfortable in upper class circles, probably due to the fact that the court he grew up in was so small. He also met many future church officials who started out as writers and visited Urbino. This made him a very influential artist for his age and for this time.

He was an architect and painter, who was extremely productive. He ran a large workshop that was able to preserve a large body of his work after his death at the age of 37. Although after his death the style of his great rival Michelangelo, Mannerism became the prevailing style throughout the 16th century, it was the more subdued and harmonious qualities of Raphael's work that became the highest models int he 18th and 19th centuries.