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Sr. Contributor
That's the point. This verifiable greatest hit of the Western canon brings together some of the most important topics your noodle needs to kick your opponent's butt in rhetoric. If you just study real hard like the grand masters of the ancient liberal arts in this painting, you'll get there in no time. It's all here: Astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, ethics. And it's all about as subtle as an advertisement for the University of Phoenix. Except Raphael's educational program has to be legit. The fresco takes up a wall in what use to be the study of Pope Julius II. That's about as good as a celebrity endorsement from the Renaissance can get.
There's a bunch of celebrity appearances at play here, as well. Leonardo da Vinci is the model for Socrates, the bald guy pointing to the sky at center left. Aristotle is to his right. Other liberal arts heroes are scattered about, the likes of Pythagoras, Diogenes, Zoroaster, Ptolemy and others. Bramante makes an appearance as Euclid, and Raphael does a little self-portrait as the guy to the right in the douche-y beret. And then, there's mopey Heraclitus. Front and center leaning on a block of stone. That, dear reader, is a rendering of none other than Michelangelo.
Michelangelo getting a treatment like this by Raphael is about as likely as seeing Ultron help Iron Man. The two had a bad relationship. Rumor has it the bad blood sprung from a time Bramante got Raphael into the Sistine Chapel for a sneak peak of the masterpiece before it was finished. But really, Raphael was an ascendant painting superstar in Rome when Michelangelo was top dog. And Michelangelo was a jealous guy. It didn't take long for him to set sights on destroying Raphael like Rachel McAdams on Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls. Raphael had the gall to be so talented that people gossiped he actually did the Sistine Chapel. I mean, what nerve, right? To be so talented that people presume you did stuff and it not be the case. But, Michelangelo wasn't a reasonable guy. Raphael shrugged off the feud and kept on a simple regimen of ignoring him.
The fresco's had some super random musical tie-ins in the last couple decades. A graphic rendition of the character Plotinus (the leggy fella writing on his knee to the right) was the focal point for the Guns 'n Roses double-album Use Your Illusion I & II. More recently, the music video for Alt-J's no traction track "Tessellate" is a meandering reworking of the painting, featuring a cast of ne'er do wells dancing and throwing bones in, from what I can discern, is a ghetto fabulous basilica at the bottom of a shark tank.
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The School of Athens (Italian: Scuola di Atene) is a fresco by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It was painted between 1509 and 1511 as part of a commission by Pope Julius II to decorate the rooms now called the Stanze di Raffaello in the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City.
The fresco depicts a congregation of ancient philosophers, mathematicians, and scientists, with Plato and Aristotle featured in the center. The identities of most figures are ambiguous or discernable only through subtle details or allusions; among those commonly identified are Socrates, Pythagoras, Archimedes, Heraclitus, Averroes, and Zarathustra. Additionally, Italian artists Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo are believed to be portrayed through Plato and Heraclitus, respectively. Raphael included a self-portrait beside Ptolemy. Raphael is the only notable character who is looking directly at the viewer in the artwork.
The painting is notable for its use of accurate perspective projection, a defining characteristic of Renaissance art, which Raphael learned from Leonardo; likewise, the themes of the painting, such as the rebirth of Ancient Greek philosophy and culture in Europe were inspired by Leonardo's individual pursuits in theatre, engineering, optics, geometry, physiology, anatomy, history, architecture and art.
The School of Athens is regarded as one of Raphael's best-known works and has been described as his "masterpiece and the perfect embodiment of the classical spirit of the Renaissance".
Check out the full Wikipedia article about The School of Athens
The School of Athens image is such an inspiration to classical artworks.
This work is such a classic
The building, apparently modelled on Bramante's St. Peter's Basilica, is flanking niches with statues of Athena, the goddess of wisdom (on the right), and Apollo, the god of music (on the left). Plato's teacher Socrates was no longer alive when he founded the School of Athens, but to show philosophical succession, Socrates is depicted in the group on the left. On the right is Ptolemy, the astronomer, and Archimedes, stooping to draw geometric figures. Behind them, in a dark beanie, is the artist himself. At the bottom of the left is a group of figures centered on the mathematician Pythagoras, and a scholar of Islam named Aveloi. On the steps sat Heraclitus meditating, and not far from him lay Diogenes. From most of them, their emotions and expressions, also the things they are doing now, all of this depiction are clear and vivid. Look at the ceiling, which has many decoration design on it, and compare with the background, the building must be really tall. I have to mention the sky in the picture, which is the punchline or finishing touch; without this, the whole structure of this picture will not be completed.