Discussion on Art across the Ages by Ortiz Soltes

Topic: The High Renaissance

Question:
Raphael's School of Athens is considered a high point of humanism.
Discuss this work, and consider the elements of humanism that are present and fully expressed in this work.

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Discussion: Raphael and the School of Athens
Soltes mentions the origin of the word “Renaissance.” It means rebirth (Soltes, L18, 0:16). By looking at Raphael’s “School of Athens,” a painting located in the Vatican Museum in Rome, the idea of rebirth is a rebirth of classical philosophers from Ancient Greece brought back to full life in a new age. Soltes says we see in Raphael is contribution to the humanism of the high renaissance (Soltes, L20, 13:01). Soltes claims Raphael’s humanism is his “recasting of divine figures” into a fully human types (Soltes, L20, 13:09).
But what does this really mean? I think Soltes is trying to say by making important figures in culture into figurations of real-life people, it somehow embodies the humanist idea of placing human experiences first over the divine....