School of Athens, Raphael

Title: School of Athens
Artist: Raphael
Location: Stanza Della Segnatura, Vatican Palace
Date: 1508 - 11

• Julius II commissions papal apartments
  
• based on 4 main bodies of human knowledge
  : philosophy, Religion, Poetry and Law
• architectural, circular frame - emphasis on faux archtecture
  
• manipulation of space to create a fictional space for the viewer
  
• Great minds of the past in dsicussion
• focus on Aristotle and Plato
• Plato points up - ideal is unattainable
• Aristotle poitns down - emperical knowledge
  
• Euclid (Bramante) describing geometry
• Zoraster - sphere - depicted with Raphael's features
  
• Pompeii - globe
• Refers to Bramante's idea of St. Peter's Heraclitus = Michelangelo; Plato = Leonardo
• space = a temple of learning
  
• movement + gestures indicate that knowledge is about movement
  
• uses contemporaries to depict past shows - revival of classical ideals (under Julius II's reign)
  
• Artists depicted - art is an intellectual practice