Donatello

:This page is about the artist. For other references to Donatello, see Donatello (disambiguation).

Statuary work

Between the completion of the niches for Orsanmichele and his second journey to Rome in 1433, Donatello was chiefly occupied with statuary work for the campanile and the cathedral, though from this period dates the bronze figure of the Baptist for the christening font of Orvieto Cathedral, which was never delivered. This, and the Saint Louis of Toulouse, which originally occupied a niche at Orsanmichele, were the first works in bronze which owed their origin to the partnership of Donatello with Michelozzo. The marble statues Donatello carved for the campanile are Abraham, wrought by the master in conjunction with Giovanni di Bartolo, Saint John the Baptist, Habakkuk (the statue is also called Zuccone, meaning Pumpkin, for its bald head), Jeremiah, and an unknown prophet who is supposed to bear the features of the humanist Poggio Bracciolirri. He may have also partially worked on a Joshua commenced by Ciuffagni in 1415. All these statues, and the Saint John at the Bargello, mark a bold departure from the statuesque balance of the Saint Mark and Saint George to an almost instantaneous impression of life. The fall of the draperies is no longer arranged in harmonious lines, but is treated in an accidental, massive, bold manner. At the same time the heads are not impersonal, but almost cruelly realistic character portraits of actual people, just as the arms and legs and necks are faithfully copied from life with all their angularities and deviations from the lines of beauty.

Related Topics:
Orsanmichele - 1433 - Orvieto - Michelozzo - 1415

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During this period Donatello executed some work for the baptismal font at San Giovanni in Siena, which Jacopo della Quercia and his assistants had begun in 1416. Though Donatello's share in it is confined to a relief which may have been designed, or even begun, by Jacopo, the font is of considerable importance in Donatello's canon for it was his one of his first attempt at relief sculpture. The relief, The Feast of Herod, shows a power of dramatic narration and the ability to express great depth and space, which was to find its mature expression in the panels of the altar of San Antonio in Padua and of the pulpit of San Lorenzo in Florence.

Related Topics:
San Giovanni - Siena - Jacopo della Quercia - 1416 - San Antonio - Padua - San Lorenzo

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The casting of the pieces for the Siena font was probably done by Michelozzo, who is also credited with an important share in Donatello's next two monumental works - the tomb of Pope John XXIII in the Baptistery (begun about 1425) and the tomb of Cardinal Brancacci at San Angelo a Nib in Naples (1427). The noble recumbent figure on the former, the relief on the sarcophagus, and the whole architectural design are unquestionably the work of Donatello. The figure of the pope served as the model off which Bernardo Rossellino, Desiderio, and other sculptors of the following period based their treatment of similar works. Donatello's share in the Naples monument is probably confined to the characteristic low relief of The Ascension. The Baptistery tomb shows how completely Donatello had mastered the forms of Renaissance architecture, even before his second visit to Rome.

Related Topics:
Pope John XXIII - 1425 - Naples - 1427 - Sarcophagus - Bernardo Rossellino - Desiderio

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One of Donatello's great contributions to statuary was the introduction of perspective - factoring the viewer and his point of view into the final product. For example, his statue of Saint Mark was supposedly at first rejected as horrid and monstrous by its commissioners, the linen guild of Florence. He listened to their grievances and agreed to fix it. The next week, he placed it in its niche at the Orsanmichele and the commissioners were awestruck with what he had done with it. In truth, he had altered nothing, simply adjusting the placement of the viewer in relation to the statue.

Related Topics:
Saint Mark - Orsanmichele

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