Description of the painting by Rafael Santi “Madonna with a Goldfinch”

Description of the painting by Rafael Santi Madonna with a Goldfinch

The picture is made in the technique of oil painting on wood, its author is the famous Italian artist, a representative of the Umbrian school – Rafael Santi. The creation of the canvas dates back to 1506, at the moment it is stored in the Florentine Gallery of Church Services.

Once the picture was bought by the French bourgeois – a rich merchant of expensive fabrics on the occasion of his marriage. The house of the Nazi couple – the first owners of the painting – collapsed in 1547, then the canvas, damaged by the ruins of several more houses on the slope, was almost destroyed – divided into seventeen fragments.

By order of Nazi Raphael painted a picture depicting the babies of Jesus and St. John. The Mother of God, at whose feet the baby-Jesus stands, favorably watches as John gives him a little bird (the symbol of the Passion of Christ). Views and gestures of the heroes of the canvas form

a “connecting chain”, combine their images into a single composition. Against the background of the classic “triangular” composition, there is a landscape of a wide river, shrouded in a light haze.

The horizon seems endless because of the mountains, majestically towering above the river landscape. Onions and oak trees behind Madonna and babies do not distract the viewer’s attention, but on the contrary, they create a larger “airy” background volume. The deep play of light and shadow creates additional volume, and the local colors in Madonna’s clothes highlight its central figure and, as it were, create the “outline” of the whole composition of the first plan. The pose of Mary, hands, feet, directed to the right from the point of view of the viewer, attract attention to the book, but at the same time, her gentle look is directed at enthusiastic babies.

Art critics rightly point out the similarity of the Madonna Raphael and Leonardo, however, they distinguish their works with special tenderness, lack of anxiety and anxiety in the images created by Raphael.


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Description of the painting by Rafael Santi “Madonna with a Goldfinch”