The Vatican artwork that stayed with me
Two Legends, a Masterpiece and some Philosophy
We visited Rome August of 2019. A visit to the Vatican city was beckoning.
For the uninitiated, Vatican City is the smallest country in the world.
Encircled by a 2-mile border with Italy, Vatican City is an independent city-state that covers just over 100 acres (Lodhi Garden is 90 acres).
Vatican City is governed as an absolute monarchy with the pope at its head. The Vatican mints its own euros, issues passports and license plates, operates media outlets and has its own army, football team, flag and anthem. It had a total population of 894 in 2019.
Most of us might remember Vatican city, St. Peter’s Square and Basilicca from the media frenzy over Pope Election - the whole white smoke, black smoke drama.
One of the high points of visiting the Vatican City for me was getting to spend time in the Vatican Museum, and getting to see some of the most important masterpieces of Renaissance art in the world.
Please allow me some personal indulgence as I talk you through one of the Artworks that has stayed with me. But before that, let me talk about the two dudes we were mightly impressed by. In awe of might be more apt - Raphael (on the left) and Michelangelo (on the right).
There’s a sea of info about the work these two massive artists have done and some accounts of their envy of each other, more so from Michelangelo’s side as the affable, sociable and talented Raphael burst on to the scene and was getting more acclaim and more commissions as compared to the solitary and melancholic Michelangelo. To Raphael’s credit, Michelangelo wasn’t too fond of Leaonardo Da Vinci either.
The frescos(i’ll come to what these actually are, let’s just say paintings for now) on Sisitine Chapel roof by Michelangelo are legendary. One of the functions of the Sistine Chapel is to act as a venue for the election of each successive pope in a conclave of the College of Cardinals. The chimney - yes the white smoke, black smoke one is installed above this very chapel (Appreciate the recall please).
But I’ll not talk about the Sistine Chapel. I’ll talk about what Raphael did after having a secretive look at it. Why secretive? Because that is how our #OG Michelangelo liked to operate.
So the legend goes that Raphael was so impressed by what he saw of the Sistine Chapel that he decided to add Michelangelo to a fresco he had almost completed. Yes, this is the one I was going to talk about - Scuola di Atene or The School of Athens, a masterpiece by Raffaello (our guy Raphael - I dunno why that spelling/pronunciation of the name, probably a reason similar to why my bengali friends call me Boibhab).
The School of Athens has the greatest philosophers from classical era - who actually lived at different times- gathered together sharing their ideas and learning from each other. It visually represents an intellectual concept - a lesson on the history of philosophy. Philosophy was an umbrella term during those times, encompassing mathematics and science as well.
It has Socrates, Aristotle, Pythogaras - Raphael himself and Michelangelo(rather his face superimposed on the Philospher Heraclitus - a brooding thinker also known as "the weeping philosopher" i.e. a reminder to Michelangelo’s nature). Appreciative Slow clap for Raphael.
There’s another theory that Raphael did it purely to get back at Michelangelo. But let’s go by the former version as per my expert analysis (ahem!) - (a) I like that one ☺ (b) Our very knowledgable(and very funny-I trust funny people) guide told us so (c) There could be many other ways to get back. Raphael knew what he was doing and knew Michelangelo fit the bill to deserve a place among the greats (d) It was an afterthought and therefore a lot of hard work considering it was a FRESCO (aha! another recall, remember Sistine Chapel?).
A fresco is a painting done rapidly in water soluble paints on wet limestone on a wall or ceiling, so that the colours penetrate the plaster and become fixed (almost an integral part of the wall/ceiling) as it dries. So Rafael had to dismantle a large piece of limestone and paint that whole thing again to include Michelangelo. You can see that it is the only slab which is out of perspective in the otherwise balanced whole. So yeah, hard work and important enough to outweigh the heartburn of adding a minor imperfection.
Information overload I know but since the entire fresco is about the history of Philosophy, let’s talk about that a little bit too🙂 Why the fresco stayed with me is also because of its central figures - Plato and Aristotle.
Plato points up because in his philosophy the changing world that we see around us is just a shadow of a higher, truer reality that is eternal and unchanging. For Plato, this otherworldly reality is the ultimate reality - This Duality of Spirit/Mind vs Matter will become the core of Western Philosophy and also Western Religion where the Image of Divine is a monarch ruling from above. Descartes expands it further to Cogito, Ergo Sum - I think, therefore I exist i.e. Mind is the the power centre, the supreme being.
Aristotle holds his hand down, because in his philosophy, the only reality is the one that we can see and experience by sight and touch. Again, the core idea of rational and scientific western thought.
If we compare Eastern thought to Plato’s phililosophy, it is an intriguing study of contrasts - where everything is believed to be a part of one ultimate reality - there’s no above and below, body(matter) is not viewed as separate from mind but as one whole. Image of divine is the principle that controls everything from within.
..and as opposed to Aristotle’s views, Eastern thought stresses on experience beyond the sensory. For example, Indian music is not learnt by reading notes but by listening to the teacher and developing a feeling for the music.
Factual, anecdotal, philosophical - I took the same journey as this piece did. All in all, a visit worth all the queueing up and walking..
P.S: Vatican does make up for the dullness of Black and White smoke through the colors on the uniform for its guards 😉 (picture below)
