Rafaello’s programme for some of his murals in the Vatican palace, including the School of Athens, was to picture various approaches to knowledge and wisdom. He pictured Athenian philosophers as a number of more or less coherent groups (astronomy, geometry, oratory, etc), but somewhat self-absorbed and incoherent. The building frame seems to say that Greek architecture and statehood was more admirable to the Roman mind, than Greek spirituality and science. Some of the philosophers represented are recognisable, like the features of the artists used to model them (named in brackets). The characters subconsciously express some archetypal features, as in all complex artworks, by way of their postures, ideas, and writing styles, and their relative positions form the usual inspired college (listed below).
The mural’s conscious perspective and design centre is between the two central figures, independent of the archetypal geometry as usual (which is demonstrated by the usual axial grid). Raphaello’s cartoon for this artwork at first lacked the type 10 Heraclitus (which he later added, modelled on his enemy Michelangelo). But the cartoon was structurally inferior to the fresco, where the artist’s subconscious compelled him to complete the usual pattern. Below is the standard structuralist analysis of recurrent archetypal features, in Rafaello Sanzio’s School of Athens. This image also appears on the cover of my book Mindprint.
Rafaello’s Athenian philosophers as builders, healers, scholars
Subconscious themes in this work are revealed by extra features of six types, on these three axes:
Type 1 /2 Builder, including twist, cluster, build, hero, book, spring; opposite type 8/9 Healer, including bent forward, pillar, heal, initiation.
Type 3 Queen, including school; opposite type 10 Teacher, of raised arms, market, council, school.
Type 7g Gal. Centre opposite 15g Galactic Gate, including junctures, paths, gates, cardinal planes (here all part of the building).
Type; Character (noting archetypal features):
01 Builder; Aeschines of Sphettus deme suburb, ‘Follower of Socrates’, or Xenophon, looking back (twisted), with Socrates (hero, book).
02 Builder; Plato (as artist Leonardo Da Vinci) with a book (book), arm up, arm down (twisted).
02c Basket; Aristotle with a book (book, arm-link). C-types are off the grid, but between specific axes.
03 Queen; An Empirical philosopher. And the statue of Athena (queen, spring).
04 King; Creto?, in the Empirical group.
05a Priest; A philosopher.
05b Priest; Plotinus (as artist Donatello).
05c Basket Tail; A pilgrim? with a hood (hat) and staff (tree). C-types are between specific axes.
06 Exile; A barefoot philosopher writing, nearer the centre (ingress).
07 Child; A young (juvenile) philosopher in the Astronomy group.
07g Gal.Centre; The Astronomy outer group: Zoroaster (as artist Bembo), Ptolemy, Apelles, and Perugino (as artist Raphaello himself), with globes (‘vortex’).
08 Healer; A philosopher in the Astronomy group, leaning (bent forward), with Euclid or Archimedes (as artist Bramante).
09 Healer; Diogenes of Sinope, reclining (bent, trance). And a carved caryatid (pillar) in the foreground.
09c Basket Lid; Diogenes’ cloak (‘hat’, weave).
10 Teacher; Heraclitus (as artist Michelangelo) with a small tool (‘staff’, metal) and a hand supporting his head (arms up), in foreground (guard, in the Geometry (‘staff’, ‘disc’) group. The artist Raphaello did not like Michelangelo.
11 Womb; Hypathia or Fornarina, axis to her midriff (womb). And Pythagoras as begetter (womb) of archetypal ideas (law), writing a large book (library). In the Geometry group.
12 Heart; Boethius or Anaximander or Empedocles, a pupil of Pythagoras, in the Goemetry group.
13 Heart; Averroes, hand on his chest (heart), and his axis to his chest (heart), in the Geometry (rounded) group.
13c Basket Head; Averroes, who wrote on divinatory dreams (oracle). C-types are off the axial grid, but between specific axes.
14 Mixer; Federico II of Mantua, or Epicurus, far from the centre (egress). And Parmenides (as artist Leonardo?), near the centre (ingress), or Heraclitus, copying from Plato (transform).
15 Maker; A philosopher with Alchibiades, or Alexander the conqueror (smiter), and Aristhenes or Xenophon or Timon, raised hand (order, smite).
15g Gal.Gate; The royal group (order).
Axle; Hip or genital (limb-joint) of Aristotle.
4p Gal.S.Pole (white point right); Jaw (limb-joint) of type 4 Creto.
11p Gal.Pole (white point left); Elbow (limb-joint) of type 14 inner Parmenides (as artist Leonardo da Vinci?), or Heraclitus.
Midsummer (pC); Knee (limb-joint) of Plato (as Leonardo?).
Midwinter (pCs); Knee (limb-joint) of an Empirical philosopher.
Age; The solstice markers, and the horizontal plane, place midsummer between axes 14 -15 or Cancer -Gemini, thus spring and the cultural time-frame in Age Aries -Pisces, confirmed by the statue of Athena, guardian of Athens. That era was the end of the Hellenistic era. Structuralist features of expression are universal, and subconscious to artists, architects, builders and crafters of any culture. All artworks and built sites express about 60% of the optional recurrent features of archetypal structure.
- This post is an updated extract from the book Mindprint (2014. Lulu.com).
- See more of the 800 examples of subconscious archetypal structure in artworks, on Mindprintart.wordpress.com
- See some of the 100 examples of subconscious archetypal structure in built sites, on Stoneprintjournal.wordpress.com
- See the theoretical framework of the structuralist anthropology model of cultural media, in the paper Blueprint, on Edmondfurter.wordpress.com
- See a demonstration of the archetypal structure in myth cycles, in Stoneprint Journal 7: Hercules, Arcadia, and Greece myth maps (also available on Lulu.com)
Mindprintart.wordpress.com 
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