The Florentine Perspective

What Raphael Saw in Florence

Domenico Ghirlandaio (Michelangelo's early master) painted this scene of the Visitation for the Tornabuoni Chapel in S. Maria Novella in the last years of the fifteenth century. The adventurous juxtaposition of the downward sloping street and distant view, with the oblique wall, was a tour-de-force of perspectival illusionism

Florence was formative for Raphael in the early years of the sixteenth century. Recently completed fresco cycles, like those in the Tornabuoni and Strozzi chapels in S. Maria Novella, must have looked challenging to the ambitious young artist from the Marche (via Umbria). This was the most advanced mural painting of the time, and it was remarkable for both its all'antica references (architecture and ornament) and illusionistic perspective.

Filippino Lippi (who sent a painting to Lucca around the same time) was especially influential because of his interest in grotesque ornament (derived from what artists saw of Roman wall painting in buried chambers, or grotte, literally caves), which Raphael and his assistant Giovanni da Udine would exploit so spectacularly in Rome.

Our intensive Summer 2020 workshop will give you the skills to see and document the world in accurate perspectival drawing.