Raphael's "Transfiguration"

This was the high renaissance painter, Raphael's own favorite painting. It is said to have been brought to his deathbed at his request so that he could gaze upon it with his last breath.

The Transfiguration was completed in 1520, right before Raphael's death.

Like Raphael's treatment of "The Deposition" in which he combined the "Descent from the Cross" with "The Entombment," he also combines two subject matters in this painting, featuring "The Transfiguration of Christ" to the deciples on Mt. Tabor above with the story of the apostles' failure to cure a possessed boy until the transfigured Christ intervenes, below.

According to Goethe: "The two are one: below suffering, need, above, effective power, succour. Each bearing on the other, both interacting with one another."

The woman in the light pink and blue is painted once again by Raphael in the figura serpentina pose, extreme contraposto or "S" shape that acts as a link between subject matter.  She also appears in The Deposition.  In the same year, Michelangelo used this same figure, in the same pose in the Doni Tondo. I've referenced the latter two in a previous post.