Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and Feast of Achelous Essay

Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and Feast of Achelous - Essay Example The paper "Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and Feast of Achelous" seeks to critique Raphael’s â€Å"Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints† and Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Bruenghel the Elder "Feast of Achelous". Whereas many forms of religious art during such a time were lavishly decorative while at the same time exhibiting a corresponding high level of artistic complexity, this particular piece of Raphael exhibits historical nuances that he untrained eye would not necessarily be able to pick up upon. For instance, whereas almost all of the religious iconography and paintings of the time and long before had pictured Christ as a naked baby, this particular piece was one of the first artistic expressions of Christ in a clothed state while still a baby. Many historians have attributed this to the fact that the nuns of the convent which commissioned Raphael to create the artwork had played a strong role in seeking to censor his style and demanded that a modest repre sentation of the male form be rendered. Moreover, the painting itself allows for some foreshadowing of the ways that Raphael’s career would develop. One need only consider the use and choice of colors that Raphael engages with, representation of the clean lines, and the minimalism and life figure portrayal of both the Madonna as well as Christ to seek to draw a level of inference onto the means by which his career would progress and mirror many of these artistic ideals. Likewise, the second painting that this brief analysis.