Raphael Santi
“Galatea Raphael”
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (March 28, 1483
– April 6, 1520), better known simply as Raphael.
He was an Italian painter and architect of
the High Renaissance.
His work is admired for its clarity of form and
ease of composition.
Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da
Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great
masters of that period.
Raphael was born in the small but
artistically significant Central Italian
city of Urbino.
His mother Màgia died in 1491 when
Raphael was eight.
Triumph of Galatea
It was complited in 1512.
It was made for Villa
Farnesina in Rome. The
Farnesina was built for
the Sienese banker Agos
tino Chigi, one of the
richest men of that age.
Raphael did not paint any of the
main events of the story. He
chose the scene of the
nymph's apotheosis. Galatea
appears surrounded by other
sea creatures. At the left,
a Triton (partly man, partly
fish) abducts a sea nymph;
behind them, another Triton
uses a shell as a trumpet.
Galatea rides a shell-chariot
drawn by two dolphins.
While some have seen in
the model for Galatea the
image of the courtesan,
Raphael's nearcontemporary, the artist
and art biographer
Giorgio Vasari, wrote that
Raphael did not mean for
Galatea to resemble any
one human person, but to
represent ideal
beauty. Her gaze is
directed upward to
heaven,
reflecting Platonic love.