'Raphael' from Phaidon

Tuesday, September 25 2007 @ 03:28 PM BST

When you can use Wikipedia for research, books need something extra to ensure their success - and the first title in a new range from publishers Phaidon has plenty.

One of the most important artists of the Renaissance, Raphael's work influenced the course of western art; his paintings are lush, deep and rich, his figures beautiful. Phaidon's new book does them justice; the book itself , wrapped in rich blue silk with gold titles, is elegant, and the colour reproductions inside are perfect.

If you want more than mere aesthetics, the accompanying text by Bette Talvacchia, starting with Raphael's origins and early influences and finishing with the extraordinary series of frescoes and portraits of his last phase in Rome, is light and easy to read, but still full of information.

The influence of Raphael's father, a regular at the court of Duke Federico da Montefeltro at Urbino, and his time in the workshop of Pietro Peruginois, are examined in a text that unwraps many of the myths and legends around this great artist.

Raphael is, of course, perhaps best known for his Madonnas (remember the scandal when the National Gallery spent �22 million on one back in 2004?), which are shown here in all their glory, alongside studies and sketches. The Bridgewater Madonna, where the child looks a little more lively than in most, is particularly striking.

But the strength of this book, of course, is that it takes the reader beyond the obvious work like the Madonnas. The chapter on his drawings is particularly interesting, and some are startlingly contemporary in their style. A study for The Disputa is a particularly lively example. Altogether, there are over 200 reproductions of paintings, details of drawings and photographs of frescoes here.

With this new series, Phaidon aimed to evoke the classic fine art volumes on which the company built their reputation. They've achieved that, and at the same time reminded us why books beat the internet in so many ways; no website can compete with Phaidon's Raphael, itself a thing of beauty.

Raphael is published by Phaidon October 2007, ISBN 978 0 7148 4786 3

0 comments

http://www.artistsandmakers.com/article.php/20070925152848936