After Raphael. 1520–2020

Raphael is the most influential artist of the Modern Era. Over the course of five centuries, exponents of Mannerism and Academicism, Caravaggisti and masters of the Baroque, Romantics and Modernists have invariably compared their own work with Raphael’s legacy. What is the cause of such fame? What did his name represent in this or that historical period, and what does it represent today? What connects the artist’s followers in different centuries? The exhibition in the Hermitage is an attempt to answer those questions and to look at the art of the past 500 years through the lens of Raphael’s influence.

The Raphael myth formed soon after his death. He was perceived as an embodiment of the ideal, an artist of a bright, perfect harmony that unites the spiritual and the earthly. He was associated with the image of the Golden Age, seen as a reincarnation of Apelles, the legendary artist of Antiquity, and even compared to Jesus Christ. Raphael’s art – for some a model for emulation, for others an object for rebellious rejection or playful irony – became one of the reference points of European culture.

The choice for the central metaphor of the exhibition fell upon the line – the embodiment of interconnection, tradition, dialogue. (The Russian title of the exhibition means “Raphael’s Line”.) This line joins together the works of Raphael, Giulio Romano, Parmigianino, Poussin, Rubens, Mengs, Ivanov, Venetsianov, Ingres, Corot and Picasso – and on, right up to artists of our own day. The parallels, and on occasion unexpected juxtapositions, with the European and Russian schools are constructed not only on the classic textbook works by the great native of Urbino and his celebrated heirs, but also on lesser-known works from the Hermitage stocks on show for the first time. The chain of the followers of Raphael linked by ties of artistic continuity is compared to a genealogical line – a succession of descendants going back to a single forefather. To perceive this as a whole, to attempt to comprehend its significance not only for art but for the whole of European culture is one of the goals of the exhibition.

The exhibition belongs to the “exhibition-dialogue” genre – works by artists from five centuries are examined in comparison with Raphael’s art. A thoughtful analysis of this dialogue is capable of shedding light on many things, both in the oeuvre of the master himself and in the evolution of the whole of art in the Modern Era and beyond. There is a visual demonstration of what this or that artist adopted from this celebrated predecessor and how they then interpreted it. Gathered together, the works of such diverse artists of different periods inspired by a single ideal help us to better sense what it is that unites them, and not only to understand but also to fall in love with Raphael, to be inspired anew by him.

The large-scale display includes more than 300 exhibits – paintings, graphic art, sculpture and applied art from the Hermitage’s own stocks and twelve other collections in Russia and Western Europe. They include both famous masterpieces and previously unknown works. Dozens of paintings and pieces of graphic art are leaving the museum’s storerooms and being presented to the public for the first time, while a whole number of the exhibits are going on show after painstaking restoration in the Hermitage’s workshops.

The display opens with works by the master himself: a painting and drawings from European collections. Without claiming to be a full representation of the artist’s oeuvre, they serve to set the tone, as it were, and after viewers have “tuned themselves in” it will be easier for them to identify echoes of Raphaelesque harmony in the works from later centuries. The choice of graphic art for this purpose reveals another dimension to the main metaphor: it is specifically the beauty of the clear, precise line, so evident in the drawings made by the master’s own hand, that lies at the foundation of the aesthetics of Raphael himself and many of his followers.

The main premiere of the exhibition is eight monumental frescoes by the school of Raphael from the Hermitage collection that are being presented to the public for the first time after the restoration begun in 2015 that has revealed the true original paintwork. Some of the frescoes have still not undergone restoration, others are in the process of being uncovered, while work on a third group is practically complete. They are all being included in the display: for the first time in the museum’s history people are being given the opportunity to view different stages in the rebirth of an artwork, like some sacramental act that has never before been demonstrated to the public.

The frescoes adorned the loggia of the Villa Stati-Mattei on the Palatine Hill in Rome and were created by artists from Raphael’s studio soon after the master’s death in 1520 under the guidance of his favourite pupil and heir, Giulio Romano. It was the hand of Giulio Romano that produced the sole surviving fragment of an original cartoon for one of the loggia frescoes – Venus and Adonis. Those who worked on the murals for the Palatine villa beside Giulio Romano may have included Gianfrancesco Penni, Perino del Vaga, Giovanni da Udine and Polidoro da Caravaggio. The frescoes are based on compositions that Raphael produced a few years earlier. Their main personages are Venus and Cupid; the main theme is love in all its manifestations, from exalted to base, and its all-conquering power. On display in the exhibition alongside the frescoes are preparatory drawings and fragments of cartoons for them from the collections of the British Museum and the Albertina – the artistic backstage of the school of Raphael.

The exhibition “After Raphael. 1520–2020” forms part of Fixed Route No 2 around the Main Museum Complex. The exhibition can also be visited with separate tickets: the morning time slot begins at 10.00 am daily (except Monday); the evening slot is at 6.00 pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays and at 7.00 pm on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. The duration of the visit is one hour, and the cost of each ticket is 300 roubles.

The exhibition curators are Zoya Vladimirovna Kuptsova and Vasily Mikhailovich Uspensky, researchers in the State Hermitage’s Department of Western European Fine Art.

An educational publication Liniia Rafaelia. 1520–2020 (ArtVolkhonka publishing house, Moscow) has been prepared based on the material of the exhibition with a text by Vasily Uspensky.

This exhibition has been organized by the State Hermitage with the participation of the British Museum, Albertina, National Gallery in London, State Russian Museum, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Art, Tretyakov Gallery, Tsarskoye Selo State Museum Preserve, Nizhny Tagil Museum of Fine Arts, Icon Collection supported by the Saint Andrew the First-Called Foundation and private collectors.