all distance, placing his figures against a background of
simulated gold mosaic and arranging them, virtually, upon one plane.
There is, therefore, no possible question of "space composition" here.
These panels depend for their effect entirely upon composition in two
dimensions--upon the perfect balancing of filled and empty spaces, the
invention of interesting shapes, and the arrangement of beautiful lines.
It is the pattern that counts, and the pattern is perfect.

The "Poetry" (Pl. 11) is the most beautiful of the medallions, but they
are all much alike: a draped female figure in the middle, seated to give
it scale, large enough to fill the height of the circle amply but
without crowding, and winged _putti_, bearing inscribed tablets, on
either side. There are other ways of filling a circle acceptably, as
Botticelli had shown and as Raphael was to show again in more than one
_tondo_, but for their situation, marking the principal axes of the
room, there is no way so adequate as this. As Mr. Blashfield has said,
speaking from experience: "When a modern painter has a medallion to fill
and has tried one arrangement after another, he inevitably realizes that
it is Raphael who has found the best ordering that could be found; and
the modern painter builds upon his lines, laid down so distinctly that
the greater the practice of the artist the more complete becomes his
realization of Raphael's comprehension of essentials in composition."
Not only so, but the modern painter finds as inevitably that, accepting
this ordering as the best, even then he cannot add another figure to
these four. He may, perhaps, draw it better in detail or give more
character to the head, but he cannot capture that felicity of spacing,
that absoluteness of balance, that variety and vivacity combined with
monumental repose. The more his nature and training have made him a
designer the more certainly he feels, before that single medallion of
Poetry, that he is in the presence of the inimitable master of design.

[Illustration: Plate 11.--Raphael. "Poetry."
In the Vatican.]

If the composition of the rectangles is less inevitable it is only
because the variety of ways in which such simple rectangles may be
filled is almost infinite. Composition more masterly than that of the
"Judgment of Solomon" (Pl. 12), for instance, you will find nowhere; so
much is told in a restricted space, yet with no confusion, the space is
so admirably filled and its shape