CONTEXT
SUBJECT
This painting represents two different Gospel stories; the upper half is shoing the moment of Transfiguration, while the bottom half shows nine apostles failing to heal a possessed demon-boy. Both of these stories should have been well known the public and reasonable easy to idenify. While the connection of the two are unknown before Klienbub; he theorizes that they both represent different narratives occuring at the same time in different places, as well as guide the eye from physical vision to imaginary then intellectual vision.
This painting is Rapheal's Transfiguration, dated ca. 1518-1520. This piece was commissioned by Carinal Giulio de'Medici as an altarpiece for his new bishopric at the cathedral of St-Juste. This is the last known painting of Rapheal's before his death in 1520. The painting was orginally loacted behind the altar, but I believe was moved to the left side of the altar when it was relocated to S. Pietro in Montorio in Rome.
Connection to Di Bello/ Koureas
My first connection is with Di Bello and Koureas' article "Other than the Visual: Art, History, and the Senses. In this Introduction they emphasize that you have to take all of the senses into consideration when analyzing art. An exapmle of this is "...cognition that is acheived through the whole corporeal sensorium, with the sensitive skins and membranes of the body mediating the boundary between inner and outer stimuli." I interprated this as knowledge from the senses involves analysis of all of the senses together.
To put this into the conext of this painting, one needs to fully experience being in the chapel with this piece to fully understand the religous meanings. For instance, the act of walking towards the altar, towards the transfiguration, puts you in the place of the apostles.However, you are not truly at eye level of the transfiguration, you are at eye level with the lower apostles as they struggle with their true belief, disallowing them to view the show of divinity above. This also activates the internal stimuli mentioned in the quote, the knowledge of the iconography and ones place within.
Connection to Elsner
Elsner's main arguemnts primarily relate to both the roles of icons and the signifagance tied to the shift of the transfiguration represented by itself to within a cycle. During this time there was great debate in how involved icons should be in the worship of Christ. The article mainly talked about the arguements of and against iconoclasts -who put the only items to be seen as icons were christ and the eucharist- pg 482. This is best summarized by pg. 483, " ...a controversy not about images or the locus of the holy, but as a challange to the notion that the image can be a discourse for the holy
The shift in the representation of the transfiguration is seen in this quote from page 475, "After Iconaclasm not only does the Transfiguration image move out of te aspe but it always does so as a part of the cycle of festival pictures." This is related to Rapheals' Transfiguration as it displays the transfiguration of Christ in direct relation to another gospel, as well as was not displayed in an apse, at least not in the end.
Connection to Wolflin
Wolflin cares about how the artwork effects the fflow of the gaze and how that is trained into each person by the society they live in. An example of this arguement is on page 120, "We can only see the object in terms of our own feelings." This is deeply tied to Rapheal's Transfiguration as the painting encourages your gaze to go up, towards divinity and beleif.
Kleibub argues that as you shift up through the painting you cycle through the different stages in vision. Starting first with representations of physical vision and the apostles struggling to look at and perceive the demon-boy, while there is connotations to demons there isn't anything particularly new or imaginary to reality. Then the gaze shifts up to imaginary vision, as one witness the transfiguration of Christ. While the viewer doesn't necisarily know whattransfiguration looks like exactly, they can rely on previous depections and the gospel to imagine what is being depicted. The next shift is to Intellectual vision, where you aren't necisairily using sight, but rather vision to understand the need for the apostles to have seen the transfiguration to have true belief, something the below apostles shrouded with darkness are lacing.
Connection to Kleinbub
Well really there is so many connections here as the painting is the heart of Kleinbubs article. Primarily he argues that this painting is a great demonstartion of the three different forms of vision: physical, imagination, and intellectual. (pg. 367) Your physical vision relates to what light stimuli is actually reaching your eyes, your imaginative vision relates to percieved images that can be concieved based on memory, and your intellectual vision relates to your ability to see and understand abstract concepts that cannot technically be seen.
Discussion Questions
1. How much does previous experience dictate the interpretation of this peice? If one did not know the gospel stories yet walked to this at the altar how would the experience shift? 2. How does the sense of touch differ in the lower and upper halves of the paintings and how can that affect interpretation? 3.How would the different locations and purpose of each space affect how the peice is experienced?
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Audrey LeFlore
Created on September 23, 2025
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Transcript
CONTEXT
SUBJECT
This painting represents two different Gospel stories; the upper half is shoing the moment of Transfiguration, while the bottom half shows nine apostles failing to heal a possessed demon-boy. Both of these stories should have been well known the public and reasonable easy to idenify. While the connection of the two are unknown before Klienbub; he theorizes that they both represent different narratives occuring at the same time in different places, as well as guide the eye from physical vision to imaginary then intellectual vision.
This painting is Rapheal's Transfiguration, dated ca. 1518-1520. This piece was commissioned by Carinal Giulio de'Medici as an altarpiece for his new bishopric at the cathedral of St-Juste. This is the last known painting of Rapheal's before his death in 1520. The painting was orginally loacted behind the altar, but I believe was moved to the left side of the altar when it was relocated to S. Pietro in Montorio in Rome.
Connection to Di Bello/ Koureas
My first connection is with Di Bello and Koureas' article "Other than the Visual: Art, History, and the Senses. In this Introduction they emphasize that you have to take all of the senses into consideration when analyzing art. An exapmle of this is "...cognition that is acheived through the whole corporeal sensorium, with the sensitive skins and membranes of the body mediating the boundary between inner and outer stimuli." I interprated this as knowledge from the senses involves analysis of all of the senses together.
To put this into the conext of this painting, one needs to fully experience being in the chapel with this piece to fully understand the religous meanings. For instance, the act of walking towards the altar, towards the transfiguration, puts you in the place of the apostles.However, you are not truly at eye level of the transfiguration, you are at eye level with the lower apostles as they struggle with their true belief, disallowing them to view the show of divinity above. This also activates the internal stimuli mentioned in the quote, the knowledge of the iconography and ones place within.
Connection to Elsner
Elsner's main arguemnts primarily relate to both the roles of icons and the signifagance tied to the shift of the transfiguration represented by itself to within a cycle. During this time there was great debate in how involved icons should be in the worship of Christ. The article mainly talked about the arguements of and against iconoclasts -who put the only items to be seen as icons were christ and the eucharist- pg 482. This is best summarized by pg. 483, " ...a controversy not about images or the locus of the holy, but as a challange to the notion that the image can be a discourse for the holy
The shift in the representation of the transfiguration is seen in this quote from page 475, "After Iconaclasm not only does the Transfiguration image move out of te aspe but it always does so as a part of the cycle of festival pictures." This is related to Rapheals' Transfiguration as it displays the transfiguration of Christ in direct relation to another gospel, as well as was not displayed in an apse, at least not in the end.
Connection to Wolflin
Wolflin cares about how the artwork effects the fflow of the gaze and how that is trained into each person by the society they live in. An example of this arguement is on page 120, "We can only see the object in terms of our own feelings." This is deeply tied to Rapheal's Transfiguration as the painting encourages your gaze to go up, towards divinity and beleif.
Kleibub argues that as you shift up through the painting you cycle through the different stages in vision. Starting first with representations of physical vision and the apostles struggling to look at and perceive the demon-boy, while there is connotations to demons there isn't anything particularly new or imaginary to reality. Then the gaze shifts up to imaginary vision, as one witness the transfiguration of Christ. While the viewer doesn't necisarily know whattransfiguration looks like exactly, they can rely on previous depections and the gospel to imagine what is being depicted. The next shift is to Intellectual vision, where you aren't necisairily using sight, but rather vision to understand the need for the apostles to have seen the transfiguration to have true belief, something the below apostles shrouded with darkness are lacing.
Connection to Kleinbub
Well really there is so many connections here as the painting is the heart of Kleinbubs article. Primarily he argues that this painting is a great demonstartion of the three different forms of vision: physical, imagination, and intellectual. (pg. 367) Your physical vision relates to what light stimuli is actually reaching your eyes, your imaginative vision relates to percieved images that can be concieved based on memory, and your intellectual vision relates to your ability to see and understand abstract concepts that cannot technically be seen.
Discussion Questions
1. How much does previous experience dictate the interpretation of this peice? If one did not know the gospel stories yet walked to this at the altar how would the experience shift? 2. How does the sense of touch differ in the lower and upper halves of the paintings and how can that affect interpretation? 3.How would the different locations and purpose of each space affect how the peice is experienced?