Learning about the painter Raphael at the Norton Simon

On Wednesday I lunched at the Norton Simon and then listen to a two hour presentation by artist Sylvanna Barrett on the painting of Raffaello Sanzio, 1488-1520, known as Raphael.  He was born in Urbino, Italy where his father Giovanni Santi, was a court painter.  In 1508, at the age of 25, he was called to the court of Pope Julius II in Rome where he worked  until his death 12 years later.

We viewed a panel painting called "Madonna and Child with a Book" as Sylvanna told us about Raphael's method of painting.  First I learned that the wood he painted on is covered with a chalky substance and then scraped for hours until smooth.  Then the artist drew a sketch of his plan and then enlarged it to the appropriate size with ink on the board using many hole punches and a grid system.  The artist then made his paints...the tube oil paints have been around for only 150 years.  The paints are made of flowers, insects, ground semi precious stones, various colors of dirt, burnt bones, ground glass, 'dragon's blood"  and oils.  Raphael used Walnut Oil.  These paints were then stored in pouches made of pig stomachs tied up and then punctured with a pin to squeeze out the paint.  Then the artist started with the background and worked forward.  Some of the colors required many layers that had to dry between layers.  The drying took a day to 2 weeks depending on the kind of paint they created.

Sylvana Barrett is perhaps one of the few artists that still makes her paints and stores them in pig stomachs.  She is an art historian and she can be viewed on You Tube on an 18 minute TED Talk explaining the methods of creating paint.   


Raphael's "Madonna and Child with Book," 1502-03
"The profoundly spiritual quality achieved by Raphael explains why his Madonnas were in such high demand."