The School Of Athens'

'The School of Athens' probably isn't Raphael's most famous work or even his best. But it has to be my favourite, probably because it's the most fascinating. Its visual impact is immediate. The great decorative arch which stretches from one side of the canvas to the other. Framed inside a perfect symmetry of curved ceilings which recede towards the far gateway. Pillars and statues of Greek gods lining the walls, gentle patterns of light and shade, the whole scene coloured a warm gold. Both glorious and accessible, this is Greek architecture at its most impressive.
But the surroundings never overwhelm the inhabitants. They form the most fascinating study. Raphael shows us a busy crowd scene, addictive in its variety and charming in its realism. Plato and Aristotle are entering from almost the very centre of the canvas. A line of fawners greet them. A youth seems to have been rushing up to join them before being distracted by the splendour of the building. Beside him is a bald and scantily clad man, allegedly Diogenes, lost to everything except his pamphlet. The aged Euclid teaches geometry to a party of children in the right of the foreground. His counterpart on the other side of the foreground delves into his book, seemingly trying to ignore the crowd clustering around him. There are details like this all across the painting; the two men clad in purple and gold robes collaborating on some work, the girl looking up rather resentfully at her companion leaning over her and so on. This is a diverse, energetic group united only by their love of knowledge. It is Raphael's homage to the ideals of ancient Greece.
In a way this isn't surprising. The Renaissance was a re-discovery of the classical era, a belief that ancient knowledge surpassed the contemporary forms. But The School of Athens is still an atypical painting. While Renaissance architecture, initially at least, was just straightforward copies of Greek and Roman styles, the classic influence on painting was more oblique. The likes of Raphael and Leonardo used it to perfect form, lighting and perspective. But they mainly used these techniques for the Biblical themes which dominated medieval art. The classical mindset only directly entered art through re-enactments of some legends. And the dominance of naked Goddesses of Love and rape scenes here show their real attraction for painters. Raphael was one of the view who created a vision of what he believed the long-lost age of enlightenment to be. And this wasn't the usual wistful images of fallen pillars but a vibrant, exciting reality.
Yet The School of Athens isn't simply a look back into history. Figures from Raphael's own world enter the painting. The regal Plato is actually a portrait of Leonardo. Michelangelo, meanwhile, is Heraclitus, brooding, gloomy and isolated. (A statement of how the pair were viewed in their own time; both geniuses but one a saint, the other a sociopath). Bramante, disguised as Euclid, Sodoma and Raphael himself also appear. This is not post-modernism, though that annoying phrase would be slapped onto a similar trick today, nor is it just a wave to friends. It is a manifesto. With uncharacteristic stridency, Raphael is declaring the precise aims of his artistic movement. To recreate and resurrect the wonders of this revered epoch.
And it is, for all its realism, a utopian painting. None of the severely compromised Athenian state can be seen outside. There are tiny patches of clouds and blue sky, nothing else. It may easily be a meeting in Heaven of philosophers who, after all, came from a diversity of eras. And it is easy to see the attraction for Raphael. The two chief thinkers may be entering through a small line of worshippers; and Aristotle even has the features generally ascribed to Jesus. They do not control the scene, however. Compare it with Raphael's The Disputa, an equally epic vision where every figure is precisely ordered in relation to Christ. Most of the School of Athens are ignoring the entrance of their supposed superiors. One, Zoroaster, observes with considerable scorn. And the great men themselves are only concerned with their own discussion. It is a vision of liberty. Of rigid authority replaced by the free expression of liberty. The favourite of princes and Popes, as placid as Michelangelo and Caravaggio were furious, Raphael still created one of the most subversive visions of the whole Renaissance.

Back In The 'Real' World

The press in Britain talk about the months of Parliamentary recess as the 'silly season'. Bereft of truly important stories, like Brown & Blair having another hissy fit or David Cameron cycling to work, journalists have to fall back on writing about fluff like murders, kidnappings and wars. Politicians, meanwhile, sometimes try to 'bury' bad news on days they know it will be ignored. A Labour Party wonk, for example, notoriously advocated releasing some unflattering statistics straight after 9/11. So far the World Cup has seen a combination of the two. A time when some really odd stuff pops to the surface, hoping everyone is looking elsewhere.

The Queen told a Groucho Marx joke during her 'official' 80th birthday celebrations. I don't know why we should celebrate her 80th birthday at all, let alone twice, but I'm eternally grateful to be able to write that sentance. The Queen told a Groucho Marx joke. Just think of that for a moment. The one about getting old being easy providing you live long enough, for the records. Personally I'd have preferred the one about not wanting to join a club which accepted her as a member. I wouldn't want to join a club which accepted the Queen as a member either.

Continuing on the topic of snobs, the Royal Institute of British Architects has discovered it has a budding Albert Speer in its midst. Peter Phillips, a contender in its upcoming presidential elections, is also a member of the ultra-right British National Party. The puzzling thing here is that Phillips - who denies he is a racist, naturally - went as far as to stand for a BNP candidate in local elections in 2003. Now I thought party candidates, even council ones, got their names published and tried to achieve a certain amount of publicity. Yet Phillips' fellow architects are howling that they've only just been made aware of his political views. Proof that unless it's got a portico or a flying buttress (another phrase I love to write) then an architect just can't focus on it.

But the best story recently has been The Guardian newspaper announcing that it's bought a smallpox DNA sequence over the internet. The Guardian, for any American readers, is the Bible for left-wing, socially concerned, hand-wringing liberals like myself. And now it can make smallpox. It claims that the purchase was only made to expose lax regulations, and that the sequence is actually perfectly harmless because it has something called stop codons built into it. But I like to think that just a hint of a threat was intended too. Perhaps not coincidentally, The Guardian carried an interview with Mel Phillips the same week. Phillips is the voice of the Mail, a foaming critic of Muslims and asylum seekers and people with dark coloured skin in general. So perhaps, after the interview, The Guardian took her aside and said, "Mel? Guess what's in this test tube. Now do you really want to carry on calling for Somalis to be thrown into the gas chambers..?"

More bloody football stuff

To continue the increasingly tiresome build up to the World Cup, a list of my favourite moments from recent tournaments:

1990 World Cup Argentina v Cameroon. Cameroon defending their lead and not too fussy how they do it. Caniggia streaks towards goal and is faced with a long line of flailing legs. He hurdles one, two, three! and then the fourth finally catches him and brings him down to earth.

1992 European Championships England v France. France’s hardman, Basile Boli, lays a headbut on England’s, Stuart Pearce. Pearce gets up with a look of such glowering malevolence that they haven’t dared repeat it after the watershed. He looks at Boli – then slowly turns and walks away. An entire continent breaths out again. My generation’s equivalent of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

1994 World Cup Bolivia v Germany. Bolivia 1:0 down. At a crucial stage in the match, enter Marco Etcheverry. Their hero and inspiration, out injured for months, returning to save them. Five minutes later he kicks somebody and is sent off. Bolivia lose the match and exit at the first stage.

1996 European Championships More a quote than a moment. Told that his team is playing well, a Scotland supporter remarks, “Unfortunately we can’t score. Before you think, ‘Pah! A mere detail. But unfortunately it turns out to be quite a central element to this sport.”

1998 World Cup Iran v US. America trailing. To avoid endless Iranian gloating about beating the ‘Great Satan’, they go on all-out attack. Which means putting every player in the last third of the field, heedless of concepts such as ‘counter attack.’ Chiefly amusing for Alan Hansen almost exploding with rage afterwards: “I have never seen anything like that in world football”, “It’s the back four of the Marie Celeste” etc.

2000 European Championships Spain v Yugoslavia. A match which, as Harry Pearson remarked, “had everything except full-frontal nudity.” The highlight: Raul scores. Runs screaming down the pitch, a journey which takes him past Dragan Stojkovic. Stojkovic, who had been using the game to regress back to childhood, completes the process to stick out a leg and trip Raul up.

2002 World Cup Hard to get past memories of the final celebrations. Brazil enter into a long group prayer. Cafu, veteran of three finals, finally emerges and is literally put on a pedestal. He lifts the cup and is promptly showered by “two million origami swans.”

2004 European Championships England v Portugal. England losing. Owen Hargreaves, the bit player’s bit player, sender of endless sideways passes across midfield, suddenly hears the voices. He sees the chance to enter the fields of glory. He surges forward, past one player, gets about 8 yards and falls over.

Regression

Hadn't watched any of this Doctor Who series before the weekend. After Christopher Ecclestone quit, I figured, it would quickly descend from last year's impressive heights and become the sort of silly-but-innocous drama the BBC spits out without trying. How wrong can one cynic be? Saturday's episode reached an truly epic, monumental level of silliness.

They found the Devil. That's not bad for a storyline, is it? No more tired old Daleks this time. Lucifer Sam himself. And please note, any theologians: he doesn't live in Pandemonium or the darkest recesses of the human heart. He's in the centre of a planet which orbits a black hole. Be told. Given that he's awoken by a team drilling through the planet, it could also be a useful campaign slogan for environmental groups. Open that mine, they could tell the government, you won't just destroy a precious eco-system, you might rouse the Devil. And we're not speaking metaphorically, either. We really do mean the Devil.

Mind you, he might turn out not to be the Devil after all. This series has the Scooby Doo approach to anything supernatural. The only difference is that the hoax is generally perpetrated by carniverous aliens, rather than the owner of the old fairground wanting to sell the site for housing. But the thing rising up through the ground looked right. He had the laugh. And he could possess people, giving them cabalistic writings all over their skin, glowing red eyes and the ability to breath in a vacuum. If he's not the Devil, I don't want to meet the man who is.

The Doctor's other problem is that he's lost the Tardis. He always seems to be doing this these days. Given how distraught the prospect makes him, you'd think he'd take more care of the damn thing. Insisting on valet parking wherever he lands, for example. Not just dump it in a broom cupboard for it to be hit by an asteroid and pushed into the centre of the world. AA would tell him the same thing.

That wasn't his main concern by the end of the episode, however. It was that he was about to die horribly. I'm glad that about the return of some proper Doctor Who cliffhangers. Several simultaneous scenes in which everyone is about to die horribly. And just as things are at their absolute worst, the theme tune kicks in. Even though I knew at the start of the next episode the Doctor would quickly save them by fiddling about with his sonic screwdriver, it always used to scare the bejesus out of me. It's nice to report that nothing has changed.