An ideal head then will suggest any expression that the design in which it is included seems to require, subject to the restrictions before noted. In The Pursuit the face of the woman presumed to be fleeing from her lover indicates some concern, and even a little fear,[a] but that this is due to the surroundings in the work, is shown when the head is substituted for another in a different picture, for the concern has disappeared, and the expression becomes one which may properly represent the highest attributes connected with the Madonna.
The limits within which the form and countenance of a woman may be idealized, are prescribed by Raphael in his works. The presumed age must be that when she reaches the full bloom of womanhood. Youth will not do because it involves an expression denying experience, while physically a girl cannot be supposed to have reached an age where her form has ceased to progress towards perfection. Beauty of feature and form is the first consideration of the artist, and hence his difficulty in fixing an expression which shall be entirely free from the possibility of suggesting desire. For this reason no model, or series of models, will suffice the painter: he has always to bring his imagination to bear, as Raphael admitted he had to do.[a]
[a] "E di belle donne, io mi servo di certa idea che mi viene nella mente." Letter to Castiglione.
It is impossible to find a head of a woman, painted before the time of Raphael, which fulfils the requirements of art as an ideal. The figures are either too formal, or too distinctive in type, or are evidently portraits, while in many of the greatest pictures of the fifteenth century the artists had not yet learned how to put warm blood into their Madonnas. Raphael, however, after taking up his sojourn at Florence, became an object lesson for nearly every school, and ideal countenances were produced by other masters, though no painter other than Raphael succeeded with more than one or two. Nowadays the ever increasing hustle in the struggle for existence, does not lend itself to deep study and long contemplation on the part of painters, but hope springs eternal, and surely the list of immortals is not yet closed.