School of Athens

A true masterwork of perspective...a few tricks in there too. can you spot them? who is the man in the foreground with dark hair and beard, brooding eyes, head on hand and pen in other hand? I understand your sense of awe... truly a treasure.

Lori- Let us all in on the tricks. What and where are they? The man in the foreground is Heractilus, an early greek philosopher who maintined that strife and change are natural conditions of the universe. I actually did not know this. I looked it up. I knew that there were many "great thinkers" in this fresco and I knew about Plato and Aristotle at top center and Socrates (left in mustard brown), but that's about it. If anybody else would like to learn more about Raphael's School of Athens fresco, there's an interactive map of it at the link below. Copy and paste this to your web browser: http://agutie.homestead.com/files/school_athens_map.html
Smiles :) TasteyG

hmmm.. I thought it was Diogenes. lol. The best discussion of this masterpiece that I can remember was Sir Kenneth Clarke's explanation on his Civilisation series.

If my ageing memory serves... the figure in the foreground is supposed to represent Heraclitus.. the physical form was the likeness of Michelangelo... Socrates was supposedly the likeness of Leonardo... and there are others I've forgotten or am not sure of my facts... according to Lord Clarke the mathematics of the composition is extraordinarily correct. Diogenes is the older person to the viewers right and slightly behind Heraclitus...so we were both in the right ball park...just no home run...hahaha.