Analysing "The School of Athens"

Art can be a mirror of society because artists draw society as it is when they are living so when an artist draws a picture they are actually mirroring society. The School of Athens is a fresco started in 1510 and finished in 1511 by Raphael Sanzio da Urbino. The painting consists of a Greco Roman building filled with some of the greatest thinkers of the time such as: Plato, Aristotle, diogenes, Xenophon, Eschines, Alcibiades, Socrates, Parmenides, Xenocrates, Aristoxenes, Pythagoras, Averroës, Zeno and Epicurus. I know that the building is built using Greco Roman architecture because there are many examples of Greek and Roman architecture i.e: you can clearly see roman arches spanning the length of the painting and in between the main chamber where these loquacious philosophers are depicted and the next chamber further back you can barely make out a dome supported by columns. I know for a fact that the greeks were polytheists because they had a god for everything Ares was the god of war and Zeus was the god of the sky and thunder; there are multiple statues of greek gods and goddesses such as Hera. The nature of this painting is in my opinion a very learned congregation of people from different time period and different cities; there is lots of learning and teaching going on in this painting by some very intelligent philosophers. However in order to make these famous philosophers recognizable the artist of this painting had to use many artistic techniques, in this painting Raphael uses lines of perspective to give the painting depth and lead us to the vanishing and focal point. However just making the background seem realistic is not enough to make a masterpiece, Raphael also used foreshortening as well as light and shade to make the figures look realistic and lifelike. All artwork can be traced back to a few elements: color, value, form, line, space, shape and texture. The colors in this painting are extremely vivid especially in the togas. The difference between light and dark in this masterpiece are as clear as polished glass, they stick out like sore thumbs and make the picture "come alive". The form of the objects in this painting were very meticulously painted with unerring accuracy by Raphael. All shapes are made by lines, lines create the form in this picture. Space is another element crucial to producing a "perfect" painting, the space filled by objects is important but the negative space matters as well. There are also many shapes in this picture that make up the building, the people and also the background. It is very easy to tell if a picture was masterfully painted or not, if the picture appears to have texture or makes you think that the painting feels a certain way then the picture has been painted by a pro, if not, you decide. When i first looked at this painting one of the first things i noticed was the togas that the people in this painting were wearing; togas are a distinctive garb from ancient Rome. Like i said earlier art mirrors society because the artist paints the society as it is in the painting, thanks to this painting we have a good idea of what greece looked like in Raphael's time.

If I was part of this painting I would be Plato. Plato was a famous greek philospher and mathematician who taught many brilliant people such as Aristotle. I like to be in the foreground at the center of the piece. In this painting Plato is the focal point and he is having a heated discussion with his pupil Aristotle. Plato is a very intelligent and charismatic individual who idolized Socrates. The reason I would choose to be Plato over all the other famous philosophers in this painting is because Plato just looks like a stereotypical philosopher, Plato also bears a startling resemblance to Leonardo Da Vinci. Plato thinks on a scale above most humans, I would like to have this ability and I envy Plato's good fortune of having such a high level of intelligence. I am unlike Plato because I am not as intelligent and I do not care so much for philosophy but I feel that I am similar to Plato in my goal of understanding how things work. Unlike Plato I am not intelligent enough to answer half of my own questions. Plato is a brilliant human being who should be a role model to everybody. like Plato I enjoy publishing and sharing my ideas but most of the time my ideas are no good whereas Plato's ideas are paragons that everybody accepts as the truth.