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Columns: A good idea from ... Raphael
Independent, The (London), Oct 24, 1999 by Alain de Botton
FEW EMOTIONS are so taboo as envy. If a friend makes pounds 10m on an Internet business, or writes a masterpiece, at best, we're allowed to say in a joking but obviously good-natured way, "Oh, how disgusting!" We're not allowed to kill them, or feel wretched, cry, denounce them, and struggle one day to surpass them.
It hasn't always been like this. Other ages have been more sympathetic towards envy than ours. During the Renaissance, rather than envy being censured as a sin, it was recognised as a vital ingredient of most worthwhile achievements - particularly artistic ones. It was thought that to produce great art would always first involve painfully acknowledging one's limitations, so that one could learn to surmount them. It was by feeling just how annoyingly brilliant someone else was that one stood a chance of being brilliant oneself.
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Take the case of Raphael. Born in Urbino in 1483, Raphael from an early age displayed such an interest in drawing that his father took the boy to Perugia to work as an apprentice to the renowned Pietro Perugino. He was soon executing works of his own, and by his late teens had painted several portraits of members of the court of Urbino, and altarpieces for churches in Citta di Castello, a day's ride across the mountains on the road to Perugia. But Raphael knew he was not a great artist, for he had seen the works of two men, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. They had made him green. They had shown him that he was unable to paint figures in motion, and that, despite an aptitude for pictorial geometry, he had no grasp of linear perspective.
Raphael put his envy to use. In 1504, at the age of 21, he left Urbino for Florence in order to study the work of his two masters. He examined their cartoons in the Hall of the Great Council, where Leonardo had worked on The Battle of Anghiari and Michelangelo on The Battle of Cascina. He imbibed the lessons of their anatomical drawings, and followed their example of dissecting and drawing corpses. He learnt from Leonardo's Adoration of the Magi and his cartoons of the Virgin and Child - and, as a result, he learnt how to use contrasting axes for the head, shoulders and hands of his sitters, in order to give them volume. He learnt about framing and shading and reflected light. Through envy, Raphael became a great artist. He had not spontaneously come into possession of his talents; he had responded intelligently to a sense of inferiority that would have led lesser men to despair.
It suggests that there are good and bad ways to feel envy. Stung by the achievements of our rivals, we could retreat into our lair and let out poisonous remarks, the corners of our lips quivering with suppressed rage. More optimistically, we can use envy to point us towards what we really want out of life. It may be the perfect career guide.
Copyright 1999 Newspaper Publishing PLC
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