Exhibition Review 2026: The Metropolitan Museum of Art "Raphael: Sublime Poetry"

Happy April Everyone.

April 17 was my birthday, and I decided to make a trip to the Met Museum. My destination was the "Raphael: Sublime Poetry". The "must" for New York City painters/art world now. I was pretty happy that I did that as I got great inspiration and good energy from there. Currently, on view: "Raphael: Sublime Poetry" is probably one exhibition not to be missed right now in New York City. The exhibition was actually way beyond my expectations in terms of the amount of work and space they dedicated to this show.

A few days before visiting this exhibition, I was just randomly learning about Raphael's, The School of Athens, so, it was very timely for me personally to get to see many of his originals. Can you believe he only lived 37 years? Even though he is master of painting (or "prince of painters") at that time, it takes time and experiences for a human to mature. To me, 37 years old is still uphill of learning even back then. 

When you visit this particular exhibition, I highly suggest you make sure to check out the font they used for wall titles of descriptions for each room, as well as lights and arrangements of walls and pedestals. You can feel this exhibition is one of the top exhibitions they pour time and passion to create and present to us, as it is designed with such these details.

In this blog I will mainly share images from the specific exhibition, but I will also include some other art. As always, this post is wall text focused, and I covered most of the wall text so I can also read it later. I do not own any rights to the artwork and text in the images and this is my personal archive which I leave everyone free access to. All images are unique and belong to the author of this blog and should not be used outside this blog. Please enjoy!

I got a postcard of this painting for myself.

The comparison of this painting and drawing (images below) was very interesting.

These dots of tiny holes. 

Classic

Classic view of artist drawing. There was only him today, when I visited this exhibition. 

I was not expecting much from these Sistine tapestries as they were designed by Raphael but woven in Brussels by others. But when I actually saw them in person, it was crazy to imagine how it was even possible to realize these images in tapestries. It is a whole another level from painting.

The reflection of figures in the river, and details of fish and seafood, the lively birds in the front.
More stories outside the main frame. It made me feel it is worth bankrupt someone in order to make them. It's almost stupid for someone to have thought of making it with these materials and scale, and therefore its holiness or empowering is legit at the same time.

 

My damage to the day from the museum shop. Normally, I would only get one postcard for myself and one to send to my mother in Japan at the most. But I convinced myself that today is special. It is okay (my birthday). I'm excited about my new painting apron.

Official Press Release from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Website

Dive into the artistic process of one of history’s most beloved and influential artists. A true titan of the Italian Renaissance, Raffaello di Giovanni Santi (1483–1520)—better known as Raphael—matched ambition with lyricism to create works with both intellectual heft and emotional depth, a necessary skill in the complex political landscape of Renaissance courts. In his short life of only 37 years, he achieved such profound success as a painter, designer, and architect that he was regarded as the pinnacle of artistic perfection for centuries after his death.

Raphael: Sublime Poetry is the first comprehensive exhibition on Raphael in the United States, bringing together more than 170 of the artist’s greatest masterpieces and rarely seen treasures to illuminate the brilliance of Raphael’s extraordinary creativity. The son of a painter and poet, Raphael engaged with the foremost writers and thinkers of his age in Rome, displaying a poetic sensibility that captivated his peers and generations that followed. Follow the full breadth of his life and career, from his origins in Urbino to his rise in Florence, where he began to emerge as a peer of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, to his final, prolific decade at the papal court in Rome.

To underscore the range of his genius, this presentation brings together important drawings, paintings, and tapestries from public and private collections across Europe and the United States, many of which have never been shown together. With particular attention to Raphael’s portrayal of women—from his use of nude female models for the first time in Western art to his tender depictions of the Madonna and Child—and recent scientific discoveries made using state-of-the-art technology, this exhibition offers a rare opportunity to experience the genius of an artist who helped shape the course of art history.