Art History: Hegelian Aesthetics Applied to History of Renaissance Art

History of Art Assignment

Ahmad El-Khatib

“Wolfflin’s recognition that ‘not everything is possible at all

times’ reflects an essentially Hegelian recognition to the

historicality of the making and appreciation of art.”

p. 66, Ch. 10, The Aesthetics of Kant and Hegel, Jason Gaiger

A Companion to Art Theory

When Raphael died at the tragically young age of 37, the pope is said to have wept.

He was laid to rest in the Pantheon of Rome; the best preserved architectural structure left

over from the heyday of the Roman Empire. This was not histrionics or overacting involved

as it was indeed a much befitting burial site. Raphael was the crowning achievement of the

Italian Renaissance: the successful rebirth and reinvention of antiquity’s humanistic ideals

as well as its aesthetic triumphs. His burial site was adorned with flowers and mourners,

but two more permanent demarcations were left there. The first, Latin inscription reading

"Here lies that famous Raphael by whom Nature feared to be conquered while he lived, and

when he was dying, feared herself to die." The second, his last painting, the unfinished but

nonetheless striking masterpiece Transfiguration (1520) which was hung above his tomb

until it was removed to be restored and better preserved.

The painting depicts the transfiguration of Jesus Christ, quite a traditional subject

with an established visual framework. Nevertheless, Raphael divided the painting in two

almost along the half and added a theatrical melee of mortal affairs, at once in awe at the

miraculous event and in confused panic about a ‘moonstruck’ (epileptic) young boy whom

Jesus is said to have healed earlier in his life (and who is remising to his illness at the

departure and transfiguration of his savior). Herein is evident that ‘nature-conquering’

quality that was a defining attribute of Raphael’s legend.

Since Giotto di Bondone sent shockwaves across the artistic and ecclesiastical world

centuries earlier, with...