I was at the Raphael exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I was not expecting much after being at the Vatican and in Rome and seeing so many of Raphael’s works in person. However, the show at the Met was a real eye-opener.
Not only did it present the history and the images, but it also showed Raphael’s education and the many works he studied and used as references for his own work. Specifically, I was enamored by his drawings. The drawings had real life.
What I realized is that as he tightened the renderings, the life gradually faded away. I know I am not in any position to critique Raphael’s work, but that was one of the most amazing things I took from the exhibition.
The other surprise was finding an image created by an artist copying Michelangelo’s work. When I saw it, it reminded me so much of Thomas Hart Benton: the energy, the rhythm, even the lighting and shading.
It revealed to me that Benton, too, must have been deeply drawn to Michelangelo’s frescoes and to the undulating, muscular compositions Michelangelo favored.
One of the things I enjoy most about museums is that you never know what is going to stay with you. I went to see Raphael. I left thinking about Michelangelo, Thomas Hart Benton, and the ways artists borrow from one another across generations. Sometimes the most memorable part of an exhibition is not what you came to see, but the unexpected connection you discover along the way.
“The drawings crackle with nervous energy, which gradually attenuates as Raphael translates spontaneous insights into the cool, lacquered surface of painting.”
— Financial Times
That observation captured exactly what I felt walking through the exhibition.