Christ (?) in Raphael’s Self-Portrait: A843 Ex. 3.4.2
Thursday, 28 Sep 2017, 19:57
Visible to anyone in the world
Consider the self-portrait
of Raphael (Figure 3.6). What does it reveal about the artist’s identity? What
is the relationship between Raphael and the other sitter, and what does it seem
to tell us about Raphael’s persona? Note that the second sitter’s identity is
not known, despite much speculation by art historians.
‘acheiropoieton’,
an image made ‘without human hands’. : The look and hands of Raphael
This may turn into a small
essay. Why? Because I desperately want to resist the idea that Raphael paints himself as Christ. In as far as
he is like Christ, I believe the simile is merely and self-consciously rhetorical
and communicates complexly. This is very much a ‘thing’ of mine, perhaps an
obsession and, in this sense, this can never aim to be an essay in miniature. However,
I do not see any identification with Christ as necessitated in this or other
self-portraits of Raphael. If it is there at all, it is only in terms of an
analogical allegory of Christ’s mission (the way, the truth and the life) in
that of the artist. Concentration on the facial appearance seems to me less important
(although possibly there I admit) since there is no pressure – in our portrait -
on the characterisation of Christ as ‘type’; even if a humanist type such as is
explored rather thinly by Thomas (1979) and more deeply in Kemp’s (2012:35ff.) treatment
of Leonardo’s portrait of the saviour.
Nevertheless the lively debate
in Christian thinking on the nature of images of the divine is important. It
matters that the ‘Veronica’ (as Dante calls it) is the imprint of the real body
of Christ precisely because it both (a) differentiates the image of Christ from
a ‘graven image’ & (b) takes away the impurity
implied by the fact that the divine might need human ‘hands’ to represent
itself as an idea. However, the relationship between Raphael and his ‘friend’
here is clearly mediated in terms of what we see in the hands of the two
participants. Raphael’s hand sits at rest on his friend’s shoulder in total
relaxation from labour (manual labour characteristically) whilst the friend’s
hand works to express intention and purposive meaning. If feels to me to point
in the index out of the picture plane – a point that is essential to readings
of this picture I’ve encountered. And the friend’s hand co-operates with his
head and face, one attempting to direct, in its backward glance, the gaze of
Raphael towards that place where he wants it to be.
That both hand and face can be
read together as index of interaction and intentionality (or its lack) is
common in Raphael I think. The very opposite being the sketch of ‘A battle of
nudes (The Siege of Perugia)’ where hands and gaze express committed action and
mental intention in total concord, creating a directed flow in the viewer’s
gaze on them towards the right edge of that drawing (NGS 1994, Item 19 - not pictured).
There is as a result of the focus towards
dramatic action in the latter a great stress on human body and art that is of
the body. In contrast, all of Raphael’s known (or suspected) portraits (Thoenes
2016, 7ff) show Raphael as merely a head without active hands. The gaze of that
head is never on the action of the picture but towards the viewer, implying a
relationship of minds engaged in looking (and thus valorising looking as an
act) rather than an active physical or even mortal relationship. This was
perhaps noticed by Raimondi as noticed both by Thoenes above and Whistler
(2017) in her essay on the importance of ‘hands’ in Raphael. For me it is the
relationship between head and hand that is important here. That is because desegno in Vasari and others was both a
matter of what happens in an artist’s head when s(he) plans and their hands
when they draw. Yet there is something less than perfect, less than
ideationally divine. About the reliance on manual labour. It is for this reason
that Raphael appoints himself as of the gaze and the head (looking out to an
unperceived and therefore potentially eternal viewer) rather than to any other
mere actor on or behind the picture plane. We see this in our picture but also
in the School of Athens.
In the detail above Sodoma is veiled and darkened by his attention to other artists, whilst the light on Raphael’s face emphasises a gaze that goes beyond Sodoma or Pinturicchio to us – his repeating viewers and requests a meeting of minds. And not because he is isolated (spiritually at least) here. Look at the figure left who Goffen (2002:222) insists is both Michelangelesque and perhaps Michelangelo himself, whose gaze is obscured and shadowed, with his hand in restless action.
The same is true of the ‘The Expulsion
of Heliodorus’, (Theones 2016:10 - not pictured) where Raphael bears a weight but concentrates
attention on the gaze as if the work of the hand were as nothing, and the disputed
Uffizi self-portrait (not pictured).
Now this has something to do
with divinity but it also has relation to the relative importance of manual
dexterity and work compared to the role of the head – in design / desegno.
Raphael is building a
characterisation of the artist I’m arguing that might use ‘godhead’ as one of
its analogies but not merely in terms of appearance. The Godhead is more
impressive when it plans than it executes (as for living our assistants can do
this for us). Although Raphael is not a mere aristocrat as that analogy with
the Duchess of Windsor suggests. He values the products of his hand and the
action of hands (perhaps in interaction they are genuinely potentially one –
hence the beauty of the painting).
Look for instance at the telling
drawing of unconnected (if that ever can be true) of apostolic head and hands
in Catalogue item 120 (Whistler & Thomas 2017: 246f.) In our beautiful
painting of two men, the gaze which looks out and beyond mere relationship in
real time is valued in relationship to that which acts out of the picture. Here
there may be a Christ analogy. No-one can ever know what it is that is pointed
towards. It could be the artist’s mirror or a third person who WAS there. Belting
(2013; 133ff) argues that the two point to the picture from whose completion Raphael
and sitter are resting and showing by the compared attitudes and appearances
the difference between how art might and must capture social masks but also the
living face in the moment of the ‘speech act’. But much must be assumed in this
reading. But then that is the case in any reading. That is why I think Raphael
inevitably engages us as viewers, asking for his picture’s completion in that
relationship of ideas. Now a Christ analogy might be useful here. Raphael’s
mission to his friend may be like that of Christ – to ask his disciple or
mentee to see the ‘way, the truth and the life’ he must lead – with all the
pain therein. However, I see that as one of many possibilities. The painting’s
meaning for me is overdetermined by Raphael’s mentation within of the meaning
of art for the true artist, where immortality and divinity appear in a more
mortal light – all in war with time (a true Renaissance theme and in Edmund
Spenser as much as Raphael).
References
Belting, H. (2013) Face and Mask Princeton & Oxford,
Princeton University Press.
Goffen, R. (2002) Renaissance Rivals New Haven and London,
Yale University Press
Kemp, M. (2012) Christ to Coke Oxford, Oxford University
Press
NGS (National Galleries of
Scotland) (1994) Raphael: In Search of
Perfection Edinburgh, NGS.
Thoenes, C. (2016) Raphael Cologne, Taschen.
Thomas, D. (1979) The Face of Christ London, Hamlyn
Whistler, C. (2017) ‘Raphael’s
Hands’ in Whistler, C. & Thomas, B. (eds.) Raphael: The Drawings Oxford, Ashmolean Museum Oxford University.
Whistler, C. & Thomas, B.
(eds.) (2017) Raphael: The Drawings
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum Oxford University.
Christ (?) in Raphael’s Self-Portrait: A843 Ex. 3.4.2
Consider the self-portrait of Raphael (Figure 3.6). What does it reveal about the artist’s identity? What is the relationship between Raphael and the other sitter, and what does it seem to tell us about Raphael’s persona? Note that the second sitter’s identity is not known, despite much speculation by art historians.
‘acheiropoieton’, an image made ‘without human hands’. : The look and hands of Raphael
This may turn into a small essay. Why? Because I desperately want to resist the idea that Raphael paints himself as Christ. In as far as he is like Christ, I believe the simile is merely and self-consciously rhetorical and communicates complexly. This is very much a ‘thing’ of mine, perhaps an obsession and, in this sense, this can never aim to be an essay in miniature. However, I do not see any identification with Christ as necessitated in this or other self-portraits of Raphael. If it is there at all, it is only in terms of an analogical allegory of Christ’s mission (the way, the truth and the life) in that of the artist. Concentration on the facial appearance seems to me less important (although possibly there I admit) since there is no pressure – in our portrait - on the characterisation of Christ as ‘type’; even if a humanist type such as is explored rather thinly by Thomas (1979) and more deeply in Kemp’s (2012:35ff.) treatment of Leonardo’s portrait of the saviour.
Nevertheless the lively debate in Christian thinking on the nature of images of the divine is important. It matters that the ‘Veronica’ (as Dante calls it) is the imprint of the real body of Christ precisely because it both (a) differentiates the image of Christ from a ‘graven image’ & (b) takes away the impurity implied by the fact that the divine might need human ‘hands’ to represent itself as an idea. However, the relationship between Raphael and his ‘friend’ here is clearly mediated in terms of what we see in the hands of the two participants. Raphael’s hand sits at rest on his friend’s shoulder in total relaxation from labour (manual labour characteristically) whilst the friend’s hand works to express intention and purposive meaning. If feels to me to point in the index out of the picture plane – a point that is essential to readings of this picture I’ve encountered. And the friend’s hand co-operates with his head and face, one attempting to direct, in its backward glance, the gaze of Raphael towards that place where he wants it to be.
That both hand and face can be read together as index of interaction and intentionality (or its lack) is common in Raphael I think. The very opposite being the sketch of ‘A battle of nudes (The Siege of Perugia)’ where hands and gaze express committed action and mental intention in total concord, creating a directed flow in the viewer’s gaze on them towards the right edge of that drawing (NGS 1994, Item 19 - not pictured).
In the detail above Sodoma is veiled and darkened by his attention to other artists, whilst the light on Raphael’s face emphasises a gaze that goes beyond Sodoma or Pinturicchio to us – his repeating viewers and requests a meeting of minds. And not because he is isolated (spiritually at least) here. Look at the figure left who Goffen (2002:222) insists is both Michelangelesque and perhaps Michelangelo himself, whose gaze is obscured and shadowed, with his hand in restless action.
The same is true of the ‘The Expulsion of Heliodorus’, (Theones 2016:10 - not pictured) where Raphael bears a weight but concentrates attention on the gaze as if the work of the hand were as nothing, and the disputed Uffizi self-portrait (not pictured).
Now this has something to do with divinity but it also has relation to the relative importance of manual dexterity and work compared to the role of the head – in design / desegno.
Raphael is building a characterisation of the artist I’m arguing that might use ‘godhead’ as one of its analogies but not merely in terms of appearance. The Godhead is more impressive when it plans than it executes (as for living our assistants can do this for us). Although Raphael is not a mere aristocrat as that analogy with the Duchess of Windsor suggests. He values the products of his hand and the action of hands (perhaps in interaction they are genuinely potentially one – hence the beauty of the painting).
Look for instance at the telling drawing of unconnected (if that ever can be true) of apostolic head and hands in Catalogue item 120 (Whistler & Thomas 2017: 246f.) In our beautiful painting of two men, the gaze which looks out and beyond mere relationship in real time is valued in relationship to that which acts out of the picture. Here there may be a Christ analogy. No-one can ever know what it is that is pointed towards. It could be the artist’s mirror or a third person who WAS there. Belting (2013; 133ff) argues that the two point to the picture from whose completion Raphael and sitter are resting and showing by the compared attitudes and appearances the difference between how art might and must capture social masks but also the living face in the moment of the ‘speech act’. But much must be assumed in this reading. But then that is the case in any reading. That is why I think Raphael inevitably engages us as viewers, asking for his picture’s completion in that relationship of ideas. Now a Christ analogy might be useful here. Raphael’s mission to his friend may be like that of Christ – to ask his disciple or mentee to see the ‘way, the truth and the life’ he must lead – with all the pain therein. However, I see that as one of many possibilities. The painting’s meaning for me is overdetermined by Raphael’s mentation within of the meaning of art for the true artist, where immortality and divinity appear in a more mortal light – all in war with time (a true Renaissance theme and in Edmund Spenser as much as Raphael).
References
Belting, H. (2013) Face and Mask Princeton & Oxford, Princeton University Press.
Goffen, R. (2002) Renaissance Rivals New Haven and London, Yale University Press
Kemp, M. (2012) Christ to Coke Oxford, Oxford University Press
NGS (National Galleries of Scotland) (1994) Raphael: In Search of Perfection Edinburgh, NGS.
Thoenes, C. (2016) Raphael Cologne, Taschen.
Thomas, D. (1979) The Face of Christ London, Hamlyn
Whistler, C. (2017) ‘Raphael’s Hands’ in Whistler, C. & Thomas, B. (eds.) Raphael: The Drawings Oxford, Ashmolean Museum Oxford University.
Whistler, C. & Thomas, B. (eds.) (2017) Raphael: The Drawings Oxford, Ashmolean Museum Oxford University.