Re-Air: How Raphael Made—and Unmade—the Renaissance
6/4/202639 min
This week we're re-airing a favorite episode featuring Kate Brown interviewing Ben Davis about the “Raphael: Sublime Poetry” blockbuster at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The show is the first comprehensive international loan exhibition ever dedicated to him in the United States. There are 237 works in total—33 paintings, 142 drawings—and his Sistine Chapel tapestries. There are loans from the Louvre, the Vatican Museums, the Prado, the Uffizi, and the British Museum. Many of these works, according to the Met, have never been shown together, and some have never previously left Europe. Curated by Carmen C. Bambach, it took 17 years to assemble. No one quite captured divine beauty like Raphael did. But what is the story within the story of this artist who left indelible mark on western art? This week, we find out.
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First 90 secondsBen Davis· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Ben here. This is a re-air of a favorite episode, interview Kate Brown did with me about the Raphael Sublime Poetry blockbuster at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. That show closes later this month, so you still have a chance to see it. After this interview, my colleague Katia Kazakina also wrote a big feature for Artnet titled The Multi-Billion Dollar Maneuvers Behind the Met's Raphael Show. It goes into the extraordinary feats it took curator Carmen Bambach to bring this show off. If your imagination is fired, take a look at that too. In the meantime, here's my interview. [upbeat music] Leonardo is the brain. His work is very heady, obviously. Michelangelo is the heart. His work is very emotional and dramatic. And Raphael, I think it's fair to say, is the face. I mean, he is Mr. Suave.
Kate Brown· Host0:59
[upbeat music] I'm Kate Brown, and this is The Art Angle, a podcast from Artnet News. [upbeat music] Raphael is one of those names that everyone knows. He's the prince of painters, a master of the High Renaissance, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has given him the full blockbuster treatment. Their highly anticipated exhibition called Raphael: Sublime Poetry opened in March