Michelangelo Buonarotti's Influence on Raphael

Although he may have been paranoid and unkind concerning Raphael, Michelangelo did have a profound influence on him and his style, though perhaps not as much as some. Michelangelo was born in 1475, only eight years before Raphael, but lived on for 44 years after Raphael’s death, and in that time he continued to produce many great works of art, although he had already finished his most famous pieces, i.e. David and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Michelangelo and Raphael rarely interacted, largely due to their rocky relationship, but Raphael did not need to talk to Michelangelo to learn from him. While in Florence at the beginning of the 16th century, Raphael studied not only the works of Fra Bartolomeo and Leonardo da Vinci, he also saw those of Michelangelo. At this time, he was specifically influenced by the Battle of Cascina and took from it the dramatic ideas which he used in his Entombment of Christ, although this work stands apart from his other paintings, as he had not yet learned to balance the emotions and expressions of his figures with the harmony of his later works.

Michelangelo’s influence can again be spotted in the Stanza d’Eliodoro frescoes, which Raphael would have painted after seeing the nearly finished ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. After Raphael’s death, Michelangelo was the only one remaining of the three most famous Renaissance artists. When the other two began gaining more popularity though, he accused Raphael of plagiarism and claimed in a letter that “everything he knew about art he got from me”. The two may not have know each other well, but that did not stop Raphael from adopting Michelangelo’s style like he did with everyone else.

Learn more about the work of Michelangelo