A Masterpiece Close-up: The Transfiguration of Raphael

14 January–28 February 1982

The Transfiguration (1520), a painting that is perhaps Raphael’s final masterpiece, exists now in a fragile and damaged state, and is unable to ever leave its permanent home in the Vatican Museums for outside exhibition. This provides a huge dilemma for teachers and students of art history, who are forced to rely upon often poor-quality reproductions. The Polaroid Corporation has recently solved this problem with its new large-format, room-sized camera. The photographic reproduction, taken at 95% of the actual size and created without negatives or image degrading enlargements, contains an unprecedented resolution of form and fidelity of color. In addition to the large image, the exhibition also contains 16 actual-size detail photographs and 13 direct-magnification detail photographs. A small-scale model of the three-story camera built in the Vatican was also on display in the gallery. The photographs have already instigated great innovation in the study of the painting. Because of the high degree of detail in the photographs and because of a recent cleaning of the painting, scholars have been able to state for the first time, with certainty, that the composition is wholly the work of Raphael and not of his workshop. The exhibition was coordinated by the Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University, and by the Polaroid Corporation, under the auspices of the Vatican Museums. The exhibition at the Smart was accompanied by a lecture series given by the chief photographer, Victoria Lyon Ruzdig; Private Conservator and Assistant Conservator at the Art Institute of Chicago, Barry Bauman; and University of Chicago Department of Art graduate student, Mary Quinlain.

Curator: The Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University and the Polaroid Corporation in collaboration with the Vatican Museums 

Funding for the exhibition at the Smart Museum was provided in part by the Illinois Arts Council. 

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