Donatello: summary of the life and description of the works of the most important sculptor and painter of the Italian Renaissance.
Donatello: A Summary of Life
Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, known as Donatello , was born in Florence in 1386 and is a sculptor, painter and architect of the Italian Renaissance . The son of a wool carder, he trained in Ghiberti ‘s workshop and in the context of the construction sites of the Duomo, and it is probably here that he met and became friends with Filippo Brunelleschi . Donatello together with Brunelleschi made his first trip to Rome: here he admired the sculptural works of the classical tradition up close. Donatello’s main artistic activity took place in Florence but he also worked in Pisa and Prato, where he expressed his art through the Pulpit of the Duomo, and worked on the decoration of the Baptistery and the Duomo of Siena.
Donatello , an extraordinary sculptor, architect and painter, modest and tireless, succeeded in obtaining unrepeatable results with his works because he was the first to go beyond the Greco-Roman sculptural tradition, giving the characters humanity, psychological introspection and the values of man, experimenting with all possible techniques and materials.
Donatello’s David
At the age of 22, Donatello received his first important commission for the apse of Santa Maria del Fiore: he was to create a marble statue of David . The marble statue of David, completed a year later, remained unused in the warehouses; only in 1416 was it transported to the Palazzo della Signoria in Florence (today it is located in the Bargello Museum).
In David there are Gothic elements that are found in the scythe line of the figure and in the attitude. The arms are disproportionately long, one hand is placed on the side and the other is brought forward that touches the leg that is more forward than the other. Furthermore, the anatomy is not developed with precision but in the figure you can still feel the desire to give it energy and life. The work appears natural in its vivacity and softness: the soft cheeks, the large eyes, the small mouth and the pointed chin.
The statue of St. George by Donatello
Around 1415 the Guild of Armourers and Swordsmiths commissioned Donatello to create the statue of Saint George , their patron saint, for the external niches of the church of Orsanmichele.
Saint George, executed between 1416 and 1420, represents a new way of conceiving and creating the figure in space. The body is perfectly proportioned and articulated, and is endowed with a naturalness of gestures and forms that has not been seen since the classical era. The legs are spread and form a solid base while the bust and head are slightly rotated with respect to the central axis. Saint George has his hands resting on the shield: a line from the foot on the right rises to the shield to the outstretched hand and then to the one placed above to reach the arm, the elbow, the shoulder and the head forming a kind of spiral that crosses the statue and takes away its static nature. The figure appears compact in its forms linked through a rigorous scheme, the work is exceptional above all for the rendering of the anatomy and for the impeccable proportions.
In proposing this rugged beauty as a model for a hero, Donatello affirmed one of his deepest convictions: the greatness of the ancients was found in the people who, through courage, dignity and concrete feeling for life, were worthy of interpreting the values of that extraordinary past. The artist thus transformed the common people into saints and heroes because he identified the virtues of the ancients in the common people.
The relief of St. George and the Dragon
In the base of the San Giorgio Donatello represented in a bas-relief Saint George and the dragon . In the slab Donatello exemplified the results of his reflections on space: he believed a lot in experimental forms and in this bas-relief he interpreted the perspective creating an abyss of atmosphere and light from which the forms emerge. The sculptor in a wise flattening evoked the depth and defined the volumes. To suggest the movement and the sense of the action he renounced to create figures and environments with precision: horse and rider are lightly sketched and the dragon almost an indistinct mass contracts under the impact of the lance. In the background there is a landscape: the arched building and the trees just raised that can be seen in the distance and in the proportionate composition.
Donatello: Jeremiah and Habakkuk
In the third decade of the century Donatello continues to produce works in which he increasingly specifies his revolutionary and popular direction. In Florence, between 1420 and 1430, the construction sites that give the architectural face to the Renaissance open . In this period the artist creates the five statues for Giotto ‘s Bell Tower .
The prophet Jeremiah and the prophet Habakkuk (the Big Head ) show how the master rejected patterns and conventions. The rendering of the anatomy is translated into powerful volumes while the naturalness of the attitudes, the relief and the looseness of the draperies testify to the recovery of the forms of ancient statuary.
The prophet Jeremiah and Habakkuk seem to be portraits of characters taken from the street; the rendering of reality without embellishments has a precise meaning in Donatello, according to which reason, a gift granted by God to men, allows them to build their own life and their own destiny, and this faculty is of all people, beautiful or ugly, poor or rich.
The classical references in the two statues are many: from the face of Habakkuk which in terms of realism is close to Roman portraits, the admiration for the classical era shines through in every part of the figures but at the same time Donatello’s creative autonomy can be felt.
Herod’s Banquet
The Banquet of Herod is a gilded bronze relief made by Donatello (in collaboration with Ghiberti and Jacopo della Quercia) between 1423 and 1427 for the baptismal font of the Baptistery of Siena. The panel represents the moment in which the severed head of John the Baptist is shown to the tetrarch Herod. The composition, complex and full of figures, moves on two registers: the emotional and the rational.
Let’s analyze the attitudes: Herod withdraws in front of the tray with his severed head, Salome advances swaying, the figure in the background covers his face with one hand. The scene’s layout is rational, in which the perspective gives order and proportion to figures and events, a perspective that unlike the Saint George does not fade to emphasize the drama of the episode, but is clearly defined.
The perspective system divides the scene into two parts: the first defined by a wall on which round arches are set with the main event, the second in which figures and environments with scenes of different nature can be seen in the distance.
In the background, within the arch, a figure carries the head of the Baptist on a tray, which can also be seen in the foreground. This is a moment prior to the main representation of the scene.
The Bronze David
The bronze David , created by Donatello for Cosimo de Medici in 1440, represents the young man who decided the victory of the Jews against the Philistines by killing the giant Goliath with a stone thrown from his sling. The statue recalls classical forms and with Donatello the nude regains the meaning of ideal purity: the hero is naked because he is defended only by his courage. The nude, therefore, returns to the artistic scene after centuries of oblivion, and it is a return of great significance that opposes the concept of the medieval nude (symbol of sin) and re-proposes the anatomical and proportional structure of the human body.
David, who according to some scholars would instead represent Mercury, has the appearance of a young and angular adolescent, has plebeian facial features, wears a strange hat adorned with a laurel wreath, leggings and sandals decorated with classical motifs. Furthermore, at his feet is the head of the giant, on the visor of the helmet is depicted a chariot pulled by putti; the wide-brimmed hat, the laurel wreath and the head of Goliath served the sculptor to shade the hero’s face and to create a shadow area at the base of the statue.
Even in a state of rest, David manages to express energy. Another tribute to the ancients is the bronze technique with which the statue was created.
Donatello’s Choir
In 1433 Donatello began the construction of the Cantoria for the Old Sacristy . The work that occupied the master for years was completed only in 1438. It reveals unprejudiced references to the ancient: brackets, frames, ornaments are taken from different figurative civilizations. Themes taken from Hellenistic, Etruscan and paleo-Christian decoration, even thirteenth-century motifs such as the mosaic on the background that recalls the decorations of the Cosmati (masters famous for their furniture and building ornamentation works) are captured and interpreted by the artist.
Donatello: style
Donatello was a great master of techniques, very skilled in casting bronze and working marble, stone, wood and terracotta. He also loved mixing materials. For example, in the Cantoria, between the shelves that support it, rounds of colored marble and parts in bronze are inserted. The white of the marble is thus interrupted and the composition is enlivened by the color.
The work sculpted in movement is fundamental for him, the strength of movement and the ability to express emotions reach their peak in the running of the putti in the Cantoria; the figures of the Cantoria have short tunics that are intertwined and overlapped with skill.
The Equestrian Monument of Gattamelata
The Equestrian Monument of Gattamelata is a bronze statue located in Piazza del Santo in Padua . The statue was erected in honor of the mercenary captain of the Republic of Venice named Erasmo Stefano da Narni, known as Gattamelata, who extended his possessions to Lombardy. The monument is inspired by the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, but Donatello makes his statue one of the most natural and psychologically profound portraits of the fifteenth century, through the severe features of the face, the wide receding hairline and the resolute gaze.
The Penitent Magdalene
The Penitent Magdalene is a wooden sculpture made in mature age for the baptistery of San Giovanni Battista. As in the Abacuc, every classical reference is abolished to focus on a deep psychological analysis. The Magdalene is represented after fasting in the desert: she appears physically worn out and torn in spirit. She has a bony and suffering face, hands with long and gnarled fingers, with very long hair, skeletal feet modeled on the ground like roots. The choice of wood finds its explanation in the type of humble and living material in which lights and shadows can be dug like wounds of a body.
