DON GONYEA, HOST:
Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci are very familiar names, of course. But what about the third great Italian master, Raphael? For the first time, a major retrospective of his work is opening in the United States. NPR's Jennifer Vanasco visited New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art to learn more.
JENNIFER VANASCO, BYLINE: Let's play a game. I say an artist, you imagine one of their works. If I say Michelangelo, maybe you think of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I say Leonardo da Vinci, most of us would say the "Mona Lisa." But say Raphael, and maybe you draw a blank. Why is that?
CARMEN BAMBACH: It has a lot to do with the history of taste.
VANASCO: Carmen Bambach is the curator of the exhibition. She says until the late 19th century, Raphael's paintings of Madonnas and other religious figures were considered...
BAMBACH: So perfect, so gracious, so harmonious.
VANASCO: But that's not what people wanted in the 20th century.
BAMBACH: It became about expression, the feral power of art, abstraction. And in many ways, the art of Michelangelo and Leonardo spoke more to the audience of, say, the 20th century.
VANASCO: But Bambach calls Raphael the greatest influencer of all time. She says, actually, Raphael is really relevant to today.
BAMBACH: His ability to diffuse his art through collaborations with other artists - that is actually not so different from what many contemporary artists do. Raphael was an amazing businessman. He was extremely savvy.
VANASCO: And, she says, he was the first artist to draw women from live nude models. Leonardo used classical sculpture. Michelangelo used young men that he turned into women when he drew them. Raphael died in April 1520. He was only 37. And he was living in a time when his Italian city was besieged by war, by massacres. But curator Carmen Bambach says he focused on what could be - not what was.
BAMBACH: Raphael is a painter of joy, of ecstatic beauty. We don't see that very much, perhaps, in this moment.
VANASCO: If you want some of that joy for yourself, more than 170 of his works are at the Metropolitan Museum of Art until the end of June.
Jennifer Vanasco, NPR News, New York. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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