Raphael is an Italian High Renaissance painter and architect of the Florentine

school, celebrated for the perfection and grace of his art. His work is admired
for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of
the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. Raphael is one of the most famous artists
of High Renaissance and one of the greatest influences in the history of Western
art. Raphael is known for his numerous paintings of the Madonna and the Christ
Child. One of his most famous is the Madonna of the Meadows.
This 1506 Italian Renaissance oil painting encaptures the Madonna with the Christ
child and John the Baptist. The Madonna of the Meadow is the first of a series of
full-length figure compositions that portray the apocryphal encounter between the
Child Jesus and the boy Baptist. This painting is among a series that has been
called Madonna of the Lands because the Florentine countryside in the background
is said to be under the protection of the Virgin, the Child and the infant
Baptist. It is also known as Madonna del Prato (Madonna of the Meadow) or Madonna
del Belvedere (after its long residence in the imperial collection in the Vienna
Belvedere). It is now held in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
Madonna of the Meadow is of a classical nature, which is very common of the time
period. A good example of this would be the nude characters used in the art. The
medium used (oil) was also being used very widely in Italy by this time. It
allowed the painter to make very realistic shades and colors. The figures and
landscape in the painting also looked very fluid and real due to the use of the
oil paint. The symbols of the painting lies in the history of its famous
characters, Virgin Mary, baby Jesus, and John the Baptist.
The picture foreshadows the death of Christ on the cross. This point is displayed
in the action of the painting where St. John is handing Jesus a small cross and
Mary is looking upon it knowing what is to come. There is a feeling of connection
between the three of them by the way they are all looking at each other and the
cross. There is also a symbol of the trinity in the three flowers to Mary's left
side. The flowers are very prevalent and are connected to the figures in the
painting by having the same color that is in the Virgin's shirt. It is also
speculated that the water in the background symbolizes the baptism of Christ by
John the Baptist. The fact that Mary is barefoot in the painting indicates that
she is walking on holy ground.
The vast landscape background, which should have undermined and diminished the
intimacy of the scene in the foreground, but it, did not. Instead the rather
desolate meadows only emphasize the isolated coziness of the unfolding interaction
between the three figures, as Madonna’s figure protects the holy babies from the
outer world, serving as a safety barrier. But the background, containing a
depiction of a city, adds tension, reminding the viewer of possible dangers, such
as those awaiting Christ and John in populated areas where they would be tried in
the future. The Virgin Mary is also joined to the landscape by her sloping
shoulders which make a continuation of the mountainous peaks of Florence in the
background (Hartt, 470).
The intimidating landscape adds a touch of immediacy that finds a way out in the
vague smile of the Madonna. Her nearly imperceptible frowning annuls that sign of
content, and together they are synthesized into a thin but constant and unsettling
sense of disconcertment, which comes to dominate the painting. Only the woman’s
face conveys both the carelessness of the present and the torment of the future —
and it makes perfect compositional sense that her head, surrounded by the heavens,
presides over the land and sea. With her eyes fixed on Christ, her head is turned
to the left and slightly inclined, and in her hands she holds up Christ, as he
leans forward unsteadily to touch the miniature cross held by John. The children
respond to their surroundings by engaging in some kind of a game, of religious
symbolical meaning nevertheless. John kneels before baby Christ, simultaneously
imitating a blessing with the cross, a foreshadow of what was to come (fundamental
Renaissance artistic device). The poppy refers to Christ's passion, death and
resurrection.
The positioning and placement of the three biblical characters are said to be in a
Leonardesque-type pyramid (Hartt, 470). Raphael favored this style and positioning
from Leonardo DiVinchi. The poses of the three are very calm, relaxed and subdued.
His overall style of the painting was very realistic and smooth. The use of light
was very natural and soft with delicate shadowing and a continuous flow of the
direction of the sunlight. The setting is very spacious and deep and his use of
atmospheric perspective is very noticeable, allowing the scene to become even more
alive and believable to the eye. The halos adorning the three are also put into
perspective by an elliptical shape and by being very faint.
The colors and tones are very natural and soothing, much like the brushwork of the
painting as well. Three levels of color cohere into a complex, but clear-cut,
classic pyramidal composition: the bleak background, Madonna’s bright dress and
the nearly white skin of the babies. The three figures in a calm green meadow are
linked by looks and touching hands. The Virgin Mary is shown in a contrapposta
pose, wearing a gold-bordered blue mantle set against a red dress and with her
right leg lying along a diagonal. The blue symbolizes the church and the red
Christ's death, with the Madonna the uniting of Mother Church with Christ's
sacrifice.

Conclusion: The work as a whole is structurally harmonic, from the figure group
(dominated by the affectionate figure of the Virgin Mary who supports the Child
and glances tenderly at the young St John) to the sweeping landscape (made
luminous by the mirror-like lake which stretches from one side of the panel to the
other). Thus, besides the religious meaning, we are presented with the universal
concept of birth, maturation, and death.

http://artandcritique.com/2007/12/13/raphael-madonna-of-the-meadow/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_of_the_meadow_(Raphael
http://www.free-researchpapers.com/dbs/a2/ame51.shtml
http://goldenessays.com/free_essays/1/art/madonna-of-raphael-and-cimabue.shtml