Sculpture
DONATELLO
DONATELLO.
Cantoria.
1439.
Marble.
Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence
|
|
DONATELLO.
Cantoria (detail).
1439.
Marble.
Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence |
|
DONATELLO.
Cantoria (detail).
1439.
Marble.
Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence |
|
DONATELLO'S LATER WORKS.
In contrast, the wood Mary Magdalen
(fig. 579) of some
30 years later seems so far from
Renaissance ideals that at first we are tempted to see in this statue a
return to such Gothic devotional images as the Bonn Pieta (see
fig. 497). But when we
look back at the intensity of Donatello's Zuccone (fig.
572), we realize that the ravaged features and wasted body of his Mary Magdalen betray an
insight into religious experience that is not basically different from
his earlier work.
Donatello was invited to Padua in 1443
to produce the Equestrian Monument of Gattamelata,
portraying the recently deceased commander of the Venetian armies
(fig. 580). This statue,
the artist's largest free-standing work in bronze, still occupies its
original position on a tall pedestal near the facade of the church
dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua. We already know its two chief
precedents, the mounted Marcus Aurelius in Rome and the Can
Grande in Verona (see figs. 281
and 506).
Without directly imitating the former, the Gattamelata shares its
material, its impressive scale, and its sense of balance and dignity.
Donatello's horse, a heavy-set animal fit to carry a man in full armor,
is so large that the rider must dominate it by his authority of command,
rather than by physical force. The link with the Can Grande monument,
though less obvious, is equally significant. Both statues were made to
stand next to a church facade, and both are memorials to the military
prowess of the deceased. But the Gattamelata, in the new
Renaissance fashion, is not part of a tomb. It was designed solely to
immortalize the fame of a great soldier. Nor is it the self-glorifying
statue of a sovereign, but a monument authorized by the Republic of
Venice in special honor of distinguished and faithful service. To this
purpose, Donatello has coined an image that is a complete union of the
ideal and the real. The general's armor combines modern construction
with classical detail, and the head is powerfully individual, yet
endowed with a truly Roman nobilitv of character.
When Donatello went home to Florence after a decade's absence, he
must have felt like a stranger. The political and spiritual climate had
changed, and so had the taste of artists and public . His subsequent works,
between 1453 and
1466, stand apart from the
dominant trend. Perhaps that is why their fierce expressiveness and
personal quality exceed anything the master had revealed before. The
extreme individualism of his late works confirms Donatello's reputation
as the earliest "solitary genius" among the artists of the new age.
579.
DONATELLO.
Mary Magdalen,
ñ.
1455.
Wood, partially gilded, height 6'2"
(1.88 m). Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence
580.
DONATELLO.
Equestrian
Monument of Gattamelata. 1445-50.
Bronze, ñ. 11'
x 13' (3.35
x 3.96
m). Piazza del Santo, Padua
|
