The School of Athens painting was the last of three artworks produced for the Stanza della Segnatura, the room that Raphael decorated inside the Apostolic Palace.The School of Athens painting is one of four major paintings depicting diverse areas of knowledge on the wall surfaces of the Stanza (those on each side centrally broken by windows).
Raphael’s tremendous aptitude as an artist was the result of training when he was a child. Although Raphel is most known for his paintings, the Raphael Rooms murals were his most ambitious effort.
The painting’s theme is about philosophers and their ideologies, or at least the philosophy of ancient Greece. The prominent individuals in the scene appear to be Aristotle and Plato.
Critics have speculated that the picture depicts practically every important ancient Greek intellectual, although establishing who is shown is speculative because Raphael made no labels outside probable likenesses.
The two primary characters in the piece are placed exactly beneath the archway and in the mural’s vanishing spot, a compositional device used to bring the viewer’s attention.
Socrates is easily identified to the left of Plato due to his striking looks. Pythagoras sits in the front with a textbook and an inkwell, flanked by students.
The astronomer Zoroaster is considered to be the bearded person appearing in front and clutching a heavenly globe. The young person next to Zoroaster, peering out, is Raphael himself.
Observe Plato’s picture again: doesn’t his elderly face and wizened beard coincide uncannily with Raphael’s revered elder colleague, Leonardo Da Vinci, as recorded in a self-portrait of the painter?
The above figure has long been recognized as a combination of more than one historical figure over the ages, just as the other number of available personalities circled him.
The structure is shaped like a Greek cross, which many have speculated was meant to represent a balance between pagan thought and Christian theology.The building’s design was influenced by Bramante’s work.