Drawing the Italian Renaissance: How artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo & Raphael worked

During the Italian Renaissance, generally held to be the period 1400 – 1600, drawing became a much more important part of an artist’s creative process. With paper becoming cheaper as a result of the book printing revolution in the 1500s, an artist could use it wastefully in a more experimental manner. Find out more about […]

The Hidden Meanings in a 16th-Century Female Nude

How a rarely-seen drawing of the Three Graces by Raphael reveals the era’s ideas about nudity, modesty, shame – and the artist’s genius. It’s part of an exhibition, Drawing the Italian Renaissance – at The King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace – of drawings from 1450 to 1600, the biggest of its kind ever shown in the […]

Raphael and His Main Works

Por centuries Raphael has been recognised as the supreme High Renaissance painter, more versatile than Michelangelo and more prolific than their older contemporary Leonardo. Though he died at 37, Raphael’s example as a paragon of classicism dominated the academic tradition of European painting until the mid-19th century. Raphael (Raffaello Santi) was born in Urbino where […]

Curator’s Introduction | The Credit Suisse Exhibition: Raphael

Curator Matthias Wivel presents Rapahel exhibition at The National Gallery    

Pinturicchio, Raphael’s Analogue

Bernardino di Betto, known also as Pintoricchio, was born between 1456 and 1460 in Perugia to a modest family of artisans. The early life of the painter seems to have been very unhappy and was further complicated in 1475 when his father, a simple cloth tanner, died of the plague. Some years before, however, Giapeco […]