Description
The work of San Miguel de Rafael is widely recognized by millions of people. The painting shows an image of the Archangel Michael with demons around him. The angel wears wings and a halo attached to him as he is surrounded by the dark and gloomy depths of hell.
In the Apocalypse of Saint John (Book of Revelation), the Archangel Michael, having defeated the rebellious angels, slays the dragon, an allegorical embodiment of evil, and throws it to earth. In this art performance, Raphael enriched the traditional representation of the scene with ancillary scenes inspired by the Inferno from the Divine Comedy, in which Dante recounts the punishment of hypocrites and thieves.
With the grace of a ballet dancer, the young Saint Michael swings his sword aloft as he tramples the hideous beast. The characters in the play face each other in a desolate landscape with the silhouette of a burning city in the distance. The influence of Leonardo da Vinci , whose fighting warriors from The Battle of Anghiari provided an extraordinary example of martial art (the painting deteriorated very quickly due to deficiencies in Leonardo's experimental technique and is therefore no longer visible), predominates in these works. But the references to Flemish painting suggest the Urbino setting, where northern influences were still quite vivid.
The work of Saint Michael, Saint George and the Dragon , and the Saint George in the National Gallery in Washington are linked both by their subject matter - an armed youth fighting a dragon - and by stylistic elements. All three are ascribed to the Florentine period and echo the stimuli Raphael received from the great masters who worked in Florence or whose paintings were visible there.
Raphael's imagination, which is particularly developed in the details of Saint Michael, is more balanced in the figure of the Archangel, the center of the entire composition. This sense of balance and composure is further developed in the other two panels, where the landscape, still of Umbrian derivation, accentuates the serenity of the figures, despite the dramatic character of the subject. These small panels are indicative of a moment in which the painter reaps the stylistic fruits of what he has assimilated up to now and, at the same time, poses pictorial problems that will be developed in the future.