Moscow gallery unveils first Russian exhibit devoted to Raphael

(12 Sep 2016) LEAD IN: Moscow's Pushkin Fine Arts Museum is putting eight works by Italian Renaissance painter Raphael on display. The works have been loaned by various Italian museums and galleries including Florence's Uffizi Gallery. STORY-LINE: He determined the ideal of the earthly and heavenly and had an enormous impact on Russian culture. Now, eight works by Italian Renaissance painter Raphael Sanzio have arrived at the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum in Moscow. Born in Urbino in 1483, examples of Raphael's work dominated traditional European painting until the mid-19th century. That's despite the prolific painter dying at the relatively young age of 37-years-old. "According to the Holy Scripture, to the Bible - a man was created 'after the image and likeness of God'. This high respect for individual it goes through all of the Renaissance era and Raphael's art," says Victoria Markova from the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum. "And he made this idea brighter and to the fullest extent." One of the greatest Russian writers of the late 18th and early 19th century, Alexander Pushkin, was so inspired by Raphael's work that he frequently referred to painter in his poems. "Pushkin, starting with the poem 'Monk', that he made when he was at school, he compared Raphael by putting him into the range of top values of the world: "The gold, the marble, Raphael". Pushkin wrote this at the time when he was entirely youth," explains Markova. "He didn't leave this subject. The name of Raphael appears in his different works during all of his lifetime." It's the first exhibition in Russia to be entirely devoted to the Italian painter. St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum once had four Raphael paintings on permanent display before the Russian revolution in 1917. But Bolsheviks who overthrew the tsar sold many art pieces, including those by Raphael, to the West. Markova hopes this exhibit will inspire its visitors and remind them to not forget famous classical painters. "It (the exhibition) should remind all us that we have to respect, to love," she says. "To experience and do not forget our own classics for whom Raphael was a luminary." The exhibit runs 13 September - 11 December 2016. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/6ba20cd2f5985a8fdc74192fd9231c8c Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork