Raphael "The School of Athens"
This Artwork is:
NEW
Custom Framed in a gold carved wood frame.
Double matted in gold and white.
Framed Size: 20" x 17" 
Image Size: 12" x 8"  
Framed in the USA
Comes complete with installed ready to hang hardware
Portrait, European Influenced
Interested in different framing?  Please Contact us!
Raphael's The School of Athens was a masterful fresco embodying the ideals of the High Renaissance, and Raphael Sanzio was one of the three great masters of that period.  This is an offset lithographic reproductive print of this famous image. The School of Athens (Italian: Scuola di Atene) was painted by the Italian artist Raphael between 1509 and 1511. It is located in the Stanza della Segnatura (Room of the Signature) in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican City, originally Pope Julius II's private library. The fresco represents the branch of knowledge dedicated to philosophy, gathering ancient Greek philosophers, mathematicians, and scientists in a single grand architectural space. 
Key aspects include:
Central Figures At the vanishing point in the center, Plato (modeled on Leonardo da Vinci) points upward, symbolizing his Theory of Forms and a higher, spiritual reality. Beside him, his student Aristotle gestures toward the earth, representing his focus on empirical observation and the physical world.
Composition The painting is a complex composition utilizing innovative Renaissance artistic techniques such as linear perspective and the realistic depiction of human figures to create an illusion of depth. The architecture itself was inspired by Bramante's designs for the new St. Peter's Basilica and features statues of the gods Apollo and Athena (Minerva) in niches in the background.
Other Figures The fresco features dozens of figures, including Socrates, Pythagoras, Archimedes (or Euclid), and Diogenes. The figure of Heraclitus, seated and writing in the foreground, is widely believed to be a portrait of Michelangelo, while Raphael himself included a self-portrait on the far right, looking directly at the viewer.