Home	Donatello: The Life of Donatello, Florentine Sculptor [1386-1466]
	DONATELLO ( 1386-1466). This pioneering sculptor of the Florentine Quattrocento learnt how to cast bronze from Ghiberti, and sculpture in the workshop of the cathedral. He also worked in Siena, Padua and Rome. He aimed at strict realism, as is proved by his 'Zuccone' (It.: bald pate, ill. 198, cf. p. 268). During his study of classical art in Rome he was influenced less by the severe classical canons of beauty than by the classical feeling for ponderability: he was the first to make full use of 'counterpoise' in his statues, since Antiquity. The scope of his art ranges from the dancing children on the Singers' Gallery in Florence Cathedral to the boyishly graceful David and the monumental power of the 'Gattamelata' outside S. Antonio in Padua, which was to become the archetype for all future equestrian statues. He also produced portrait busts, Madonnas, Prophets, reliefs from Biblical history and finally his dramatic altar-pieces ('Judith and Holofernes', Florence, and 'John the Baptist', Siena). The influence of Antiquity is also reflected in the more catholic choice of themes. Figures like that of Bacchus, or classical scenes like the Judgment of Paris carved in relief, now take their places beside biblical subjects like the Pietà or David. An increasing realism went hand in hand with the advent of secular themes. Already Peter Parler had aimed at personal likeness in his portrait busts of 1380 in Prague Cathedral. But he was mostly portraying princes. His figures were still essentially part of the church building, as were the naturalistic figures of the Dutchman Claus Sluter, whose most important work, the Moses fountain, was made for the cloisters of the Carthusian Monastery of Champmol near Dijon round 1400. It was the Italians who severed the connection with sacred art completely and created portrait busts of ordinary human beings, which were intended for the dwellings of their patrons. Realism extended even to the statues of saints. Here, even disfiguring ugliness is not avoided. Sculptures thereby gain in dramatic expression. The figure of the prophet, by Ghiberti's contemporary Donatello, was called by the people 'Zuccone' (pumpkin-head) and looks like an old and extremely ugly man of the people (ill. 198). But Donatello also exalted the beauty of the human form. His David is considered the first freshlyinterpreted nude statue since Antiquity, his 'Gattamelata' ( 1453) the century's first equestrian statue in its own right. Comparison with the equestrian portrait of the Swedish Regent Sten Sture -- who is still represented as an altar figure of St George, entirely in the medieval spirit -- shows how revolutionary was Donatello's statue, though the earlier of the two by several years. The Italian Renaissance sculptors glorified the great condottieri in equestrian statues that revived the Classic Roman tradition. Donatello's 'Gattemelata' no longer wears a saint's robes; he is essentially of this world and, with his baton as a Marshal of Venice, is representative of the man of power, whose thoughts and actions are determined by the utmost realism. This element is further developed in the second great equestrian statue of the Quattrocento, Andrea del Verrocchio's 'Colleoni.' Here power has turned to compulsion in the fierce gaze and gesture of the rider; it is further emphasised by the strength he displays in reining in his horse, yet it unites the movement of both man and animal. With Donatello, sculpture began to move out of the orbit of the Church and to assume more secular attributes. His fellow-pioneer Ghiberti's two bronze doors for the baptistery in Florence -- they took him 20 years to complete -- show that his work was still more firmly rooted in the old tradition. But on the second door Ghiberti took advantage of the new discoveries made by the painters, and set the biblical scenes of the fire-gilt bronze reliefs against a landscape with perspective and an architectural background. The connection between sculpture and church architecture, which had existed throughout the whole of the Middle Ages, gradually loosened. Only the interior of the church still provided opportunities -- in the decoration of pulpits or tombs. But secular sculpture grew correspondingly in importance. In addition to portraits busts, thousands of small bronze figures were now made for the houses of wealthy collectors ( Pollaiuolo, Verrocchio). Italian painting since Masaccio achieved these effects above all through Brunelleschi's linear perspective. Masaccio's figures, recalling Giotto in their powerful monumentality, stand out with great clarity in front of the recession of the scenery. While Giotto's figures still resemble those in a relief, Masaccio's seem about to step out of their frames as do Donatello's statues from their niches. They create such a powerful impression, even to-day still, that we can understand Vasari's claim that 'everything made before Masaccio looked as if it was painted, but that everything made by him was alive, true and natural.' Page 2 Page 3