Raphael Art history lesson

I have to admit, I knew Raphael, but being a kid during the 80s and 90s my first thought when I hear Raphael was the headstrong turtle from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, heroes in a half shell, turtle power. I mean I knew there was an artist, but truthfully, it was TMNT in my house, which is why I find this meme (right below this) so hilarious. And that will end my TMNT references in this history lesson, let’s get to the true Raphael lesson, which has a bit of art history, and some other history going on with it.

Okay, that’s not the one I was thinking of, but it’s still funny. Let’s dive into this Raphael lesson

 

Some background on who Raphael was

Raphael was younger than many of the famous artists of the Renaissance and burst onto the scenes causing quite a store among the art world.

During his early years, he was heavily inspired by Fra Bartolommeo, Leonardo DaVinci, Michelangelo, and Masaccio. He even painted a series of paintings of the Madonna heavily inspired by DaVinci.

He was known for his serene and harmonious paintings that were considered the height of humanism. His School of Athens in Saint Peters’ Basilica is justly famous.

Eventually, he grew bored with art and moved on to try his hand at architecture, but is still best known for his paintings.

And here are all of my Renaissance artist videos I found. But, since we’re just talking about Raphael today, here are the specific videos I used to teach with:

Raphael books I found

• Our library didn’t have a lot in the way of books, just about Raphael, so most of these books are also general Renaissance art.
• Raphael– Still my favorite art history series
• A Child’s Introduction to Art: The World’s Greatest Paintings and Sculptures– This is a good overall art history book, but is not limited to the Renaissance
• Leonardo and His Times– The version my library has by this author is called just “Renaissance,” but it looks like it’s been updated since then to focus on Leonardo DaVinci, who everyone is obsessed with now
• Renaissance Artists: with history projects for kids– I love books like this with hands on projects to go with it

Let’s get crafty with a Raphael art lesson

supplies: watercolor paper (honestly we just used normal copy paper, since this was part of our Italy Notebooking pages [found on the subscriber page, sign up for my newsletter]), watercolors, pencil

 

We had problems getting just the right colors for this project with our color mix. There was a lot of laughing going on as we followed her instructions. I paused the video fairly often for kids to stop and catch up, and then we also were working through several different Renaissance artists, so by the time we got to our Raphael lesson, the kids were a bit squirrely and silly.

And while Raphael didn’t outline his paintings with a nice Prismacolor marker to help define his lines, I like how it turned out with that added detail.

I’d say more, but honestly, I would just be repeating what’s in the video, and my comments won’t really be adding much beyond adding wordcount to my post, so that’s all I have to say.

There’s not even a funny story to go specifically with this lesson.

Sadness.

It just went nice and smoothly. Kind of weird

More fun history or art lessons

• Pablo Picasso art lesson
• Titian art lesson
• Visit a Renaissance Festival
• Cave Paintings of Lascaux art lesson
• Fountain of Youth history lesson