The School of Athens
Vatican city, in the Apostolic palace there is a beautiful room called the Stanza della Segnatura ,the library of the militant pope, Julius the second, there are four paintings ,by one of the masters of Renaissance art, Raphael.
The four walls of the beautiful library depict the four branches of knowledge of mankind , philosophy, theology, poetry and law.
In this write up we are focussing only on the fresco of philosophy.
This fresco was painted between the years of 1509–1511. You see the great minds of the ancient world not just standing side by side but discussing and debating therefore they can be said to be in the process of scholarship or scholarly activities.
What is so great about this painting is that it provides a sense of acceptance by the church, they are accepting the branches of human knowledge too. This sits side by side with the fresco of theology , which until now was the only branch of knowledge accepted by the church, but with the Renaissance came change and with change came the birth of humanism, a sympathetic study of humanity.
This is an image of the Pope’s library. Here you can see the fresco related to the study of theology.
So this is the fresco dedicated to theology. Here you see the lord seated on a throne surrounded by the saints and church fathers and below you see the Eucharist , a symbol of God’s power or physical presence of the Earth.
Back to the school of Athens in the comparison, you will notice that in the theology fresco you will see the men seated under the open earth sky, earth’s natural church, but in sharp contrast you see in the School of Athens the men are under a Roman arch, therefore giving away the man made aspect of the branch of philosophy.
Let’s delve in closer to School of Athens.
I would like to draw your attention to the bottom right hand side corner
Here you see Euclid teaching his pupils the basics of Euclidian geometry.
The first pupil is so engrossed in the explanation that he does not look up, the one above him holding his shoulder maybe a teaching apprentice, the pupil after her looks above with a even deeper sense of understanding and one standing above the master patiently awaits the master to finish. This may also represent the various stages of learning that a person goes through , finally the pupil takes the place of the master.
Here you see Zoroaster, maybe this could be a sign to represent the eastern wisdom and knowledge.
See in the above Socrates not teaching but debating with his pupils, the one wearing the helmet could possibly be Alexander the great, from the student dressed in the blue and green clothes we get a hint to boredom about what he is telling them. The man in red shows a sign of anger or disagreement.
Now to come to the central figures Plato and his pupil Aristotle.
Plato holds a hand up pointing to the sky, telling us that there is more that just what we see and that we must also have a spiritual enquiry.
Aristotle lay a hand down pointing towards the Earth asking us to be more bothered about what is here on Earth and asking us to go out to the world and gain knowledge and get a better understanding of the world.
Even the clothes worn by Plato represent the spiritual or something that is beyond man’s understanding, the red signifies fire and the blue, air. Aristotle wears blue representing water and brown representing the earth.
In this central scene Raphael was able to capture the division of man’s intellectual ability , both men of course even holding their respective books which speak about what they stand for.
Raphael was able to capture in whole the intellectuals of ancient world that the Renaissance deemed as true lanterns of knowledge and wisdom in a single painting.
The architecture of the setting is truly Roman and not as you would expect to be Greek as the most of the scholars are.
In conclusion this painting is truly a symbol of what the Renaissance stands for, putting both human knowledge and divine knowledge on the same platform but always ever so slightly hinting the power of God as greater.
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