Focus on Madonna della Seggiola and explore the Techniques.
The Madonna della Sedia is the culmination of Raphael's use of the tondo form and influenced an equivalent singular male portrait, The Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione (c. 1514–1515). The painting is oil on panel, with St John the Baptist painted in a different key range. The painted black background is lacking the usual landscape, which typically would harmonize all the colors and figures. The composition is entirely from Raphael's hand, which was a result of him shuddering off the legacies of Leonardo da Vinci and Pietro Perugino, who early on had influenced his career and style substantially. The technical execution of the painting lies within its remarkable composition, which was originally envisioned as a rectangle. Raphael did not consider the circular shape during the preliminary sketches for this painting, even though it is a form he favored during and after his Florentine period. The figures' accommodation to the shape is skillful. The painting also revolutionized the Madonna format in the Renaissance style due to its departure from the pyramidal composition of the Madonna, Christ child, Saint Joseph, and by giving the painting a superficial background, which is radically different when comparing it to an earlier Madonna portrait, The Alba Madonna (c. 1510).The painting also revolutionized singular portrait painting during the Renaissance by enlarging the figure's scale and how they compositionally occupy the entire plane. By radically changing the scale of the figures in this painting, allowing them to occupy most of the available space, the Christ child seems to be the basis of both the Madonna and Saint John the Baptist's proportions and relationship within the painting.
Madonna Raphael Renaissance Christ Pietro Perugino The Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione Leonardo da Vinci painting Florentine John the Baptist Alba Madonna child Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione different key tondo Saint John the Baptist