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Home , David (Donatello), Donatello, Nanni di Banco

The Magic of Andrew Butterfield

Sculpture in the Age of Donatello: smith , and another Masterpieces from young Florentine goldsmith, Filippo Cathedral Brunelleschi—the future architect— an exhibition at the Museum of came in second. A new era in the his- Biblical Art, New York City, tory of art had begun. February 20–June 14, 2015. Like all revolutions, the transfor- Catalog of the exhibition edited by mation of the arts in early-fifteenth- Timothy Verdon and Daniel M. Zolli. century Florence can never be fully Museum of Biblical Art/Giles, explained; at best we can only identify 200 pp., $49.95 some contributing causes. Stimulated in part by the city’s soaring prosperity The Museum of Biblical Art, lodged and growing hegemony, around 1400 in a relatively small space on Broad- the wealthy merchants who ran Flor- way near Lincoln Center, is now show- ence began to pour unprecedented ing nine by Donatello, one amounts of cash into new buildings, of the greatest of all - paintings, and sculptures. They were ists. Never before have so many of his proud of the architectural splendor best works been shown together in the of Florence and saw it as a sign of the

United States. Antonio Quattrone/Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence city’s manifest destiny. This attitude Among the works on view is Don- was given voice by Leonardo Bruni, atello’s large of the Old Tes- who wrote around 1403–1404 in his tament prophet . “Speak, Panegyric to the City of Florence: damn you, speak!” Donatello, we are told, repeatedly shouted at the As soon as [visitors] have seen . . . while carving it. The dream of a statue the grandeur of its buildings, its that can speak or breathe or move splendor and magnificence, the is a fantasy shared by many cultures lofty towers, the marble churches, throughout time, and the story may the domes of the basilicas . . . they be apocryphal. Still, it points to the are no longer amazed by the great- fundamental appeal of Donatello’s ness and most important exploits sculptures: by some strange magic they accomplished by Florence. Rather, seem to capture the phantom of life. everyone immediately comes to Nowhere is this more evident than in believe that Florence is indeed the Habakkuk, which Vasari praised worthy of attaining dominion and as “finer than anything else he ever rule over the entire world. made.” Even today it is often said to be the most important marble statue of As the Florentine merchant and phi- the fifteenth century. losopher Matteo Palmieiri stated some This sublimely harrowing work is years later, it was the duty of “great at the heart of the exhibition “Sculp- men” to spend “on things that are hon- ture in the Age of Donatello.” All orific and full of glory, not private, but twenty-three items in it were made for public things, such as buildings and the the cathedral of Florence in the late decoration of churches.” fourteenth and early fifteenth centu- No one ranked higher in Florentine ries and are on loan from its museum, society than the members of the in- the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, ternational wool merchants’ guild, the which is currently closed for renova- Arte della Lana, who patronized the tion. None of the sculptures has been Duomo. Starting in the 1390s, they shown in the US before. Along with ‘Prophet’ (possibly Habakkuk), known as the ‘’; sought to put up more , on a works by Donatello, the exhibition fea- marble sculpture by Donatello, 1427–1436 larger scale and more quickly, than ever tures sculptures by his contemporaries before in Florentine history. The scope , , placement on the exterior of the ca- Europe in the early fifteenth century. of effort was colossal. It occurred, how- Giovanni d’Ambrogio, and others, as thedral and its bell tower, this setting This flourishing is all the more remark- ever, at a moment when many cities, well as architectural models by Filippo could have proved very unsympathetic. able when we consider how sudden it including Milan and Venice, were also Brunelleschi. Fortunately, the works are beautifully was. In Florence both arts had lain dor- erecting enormous cathedrals and pal- The show reminds us why Donatello lighted, and the bases are high enough mant for much of the previous century; aces, and as a result experienced sculp- is so often ranked among the greatest to suggest their original exalted posi- the few major projects there in building tors and masons were in demand all sculptors. Born in Florence around tion yet low enough to allow the viewer and sculpting had been commissioned over . The overseers of the Duomo 1386, the son of a wool carder, he to stand in close proximity to them. mostly from foreign artists who came had no choice but to rely more than be- worked in his teens assisting Lorenzo Moreover, several of the statues have to the city specifically for the task, fore on a group of untested locals, many Ghiberti on the bronze doors of the recently been freed from decades of and often left even before the job was of whom had been initially trained as , but very soon after emerged soot and grime by cleaning; for the first done. For instance, the new cathedral goldsmiths, not as stone carvers. as one of the preeminent artists of the time in living memory they are close of Florence was begun in 1296 by Ar- It is rarely remarked how very Renaissance. His most admired sculp- to their original color and luster. They nolfo di Cambio, a Sienese artist who young these artists were. At the time tures include the fiery are shown to better effect in New York had trained in , and the first bronze of the competition for the Baptistery carved for the church of than ever before. doors for the Baptistery, made around doors Ghiberti was only about twenty- around 1416, the sleek bronze A system of translucent white cur- 1330, were designed by a sculptor from one, and Brunelleschi twenty-four. made for the Medici, probably in the tains divides the room into bays for the Pisa and cast by a founder from Venice. Donatello was only about twenty when late 1430s, and the proud equestrian different sections of the show, allowing Effectively, there was no local tradition he began his earliest independent com- statue of the Venetian condottiere the visitor to concentrate on individual in making sculpture or architecture. mission, a prophet for the cathedral, Erasmo da Narni, known as Gattame- items, but also to take in the entire ex- When work on the cathedral en- which is on view in the exhibition. lata, erected in between 1447 hibition at a glance. The visual experi- tered a new phase of high activity at Nanni di Banco, Donatello’s main and 1453. Sources tell us little about ence is compressed yet illuminating. the end of the fourteenth century, rival in these years in marble carving, Donatello’s personality, although one Standing in one spot, simply by turning non-Florentines still were predominant was also in his early or mid- twenties writer describes him as being “rough your head, you can see the evolution of in its creation—one leading sculptor when he made the pendant to this fig- and very straightforward.” In his art, art in Florence during the first decades for the Duomo was from Germany. ure. Their youthful freedom from the too, he favored forcefulness of expres- of the Renaissance. The last instance of this tendency was weight of tradition helped these art- sion and cared little for tradition and the famous competition held in 1401 ists to re imagine the possibilities and convention. to make a new set of bronze doors techniques of sculpture, and the urgent The objects in New York are dis- Continuing efforts to build and deco- for the Baptistery; most of the con- demand for new work meant they were played in just one medium-sized room. rate the Florentine Duomo made it the testants were from and other forced into continual collaboration and Since some of the sculptures are larger most important site for the develop- Tuscan towns. Yet this competition competition—a perfect setting for in- than life and most were intended for ment of sculpture and architecture in was won by the young Florentine gold- novation. The sculpture workshop of

12 The New York Review the cathedral became a laboratory of his sacrifice of his son. With one hand Among Donatello’s first attempts vine vision: “When I heard, my belly constant experimentation and advance. still grasps Isaac’s hair at the to represent a holy person in this way trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: back of his head, but with the other he was the marble of Habbakuk, which rottenness entered into my bones, and I turns the blade away from Isaac’s neck, he carved for the Campanile likely trembled in myself.” Donatello’s statue The exhibition opens with an An- and his grip on the knife has begun to between 1427 and 1436. It represents embodies the sense of spiritual and nunciation group of the Archangel relax. The sculpture’s strong illusion of the prophet whose short book in the physical terror in the biblical account. Gabriel and the Virgin Mary, made at movement was aided by drilling clear Old Testament concerns the rise and There is a tendency in the study of the end of the fourteenth century, and through the block of marble at sev- advance of the Chaldeans against the Donatello to praise his classicism and commonly attributed to the sculptor eral points so that Abraham’s massive Jews in the seventh century BC. The naturalism, but looking at Habbakuk Giovanni d’Ambrogio. It exemplifies arms can appear to swing free of his sculpture is commonly called Lo Zuc- one must acknowledge how inadequate both the sophistication and the limita- torso, and the right legs of Abraham cone (“the pumpkin”) because of his and misleading such terms are in any tions of Italian sculpture of this time. and Isaac can be posed in front of their large bald pate. Created three decades account of his art. The massive drap- The faces are exquisitely carved and bodies. Since the end of classical antiq- after the Profetino, it was the last mar- ery of the figure, for example, is only the robes wrap around the figures with uity nearly a thousand years before, no ble statue Donatello ever made; there- loosely related to that of ancient sculp- consummate grace, yet the bodies are Italian sculptor had tried anything so after he worked chiefly in bronze. ture, and the head with its mesmerizing nearly lost beneath the fabric and the bold in the carving of marble sculpture. The first word of the book of Hab- eyes is far distant from the restraint of a limbs are pressed so close to the trunk Republican or Imperial bust. Even phi- of the statue that they look stunted and losopher portraits from the so-called inert. “age of anxiety” in the third and fourth A basic problem for many sculptors centuries AD look placid and serene by before the fifteenth century was tech- comparison. Donatello, no doubt, stud- nical, as we can see in these statues. ied ancient sculpture with passion, but Uncertain of the physical capacities of he felt wholly unbound by its conven- stone, and unwilling to risk spoiling a tions; he was only interested in how it costly block of marble through unnec- could help him achieve greater vitality essary experimentation, artists typi- and expressiveness. cally carved their statues as shallowly According to a tradition repeated as possible, with minimal undercutting in Vasari, Habbakuk’s features were of the limbs and drapery. As a result, modeled on those of a Florentine citi- sculptures of this time often appear zen, and partly on this basis some art blocky and constrained. historians have credited the statue’s We are in a very different world when power to its element of realism. But we stand before the prophets attrib- as with so many of Donatello’s works, uted to Donatello and Nanni di Banco, the credibility of this sculpture—its carved about ten years later, for the eerie vividness and palpable sense of Porta della Mandorla, a major entrance Antonio Quattrone/Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence presence—has as much to do with the on the north side of the cathedral. distortion of actuality as with its imi- Gone is the refinement and restraint tation. As we can see in Habbakuk, of earlier works. Instead the emphasis Donatello was always significantly is entirely on movement and emotion. exaggerating the size of the most ex- Donatello’s Profetino (small prophet) pressive features, especially the eyes, is so desperate to communicate that he mouth, and hands. Another example of lurches toward us, almost stepping off this in the show is in the Saint John the his base. He juts his neck forward and Evangelist made for the façade of the raises his head, seemingly yearning for cathedral between 1408 and 1415; Do- the light above, yet his eyes are directed natello gave this statue massive hands downward and his lips are parted. He is and ferocious eyes as well. Further- about to speak, and the hand raised to more, to overcome the lifelessness of the heart suggests that his message will marble or bronze, he made the outlines be moving and grave. and surfaces of his sculptures undulate The new emphasis on motion and ex- in irregular, uneven, and asymmetrical pression was accompanied by a change shapes so that the figure would look as in technique. Ghiberti and Donatello if it were caught in a moment of change, were possibly the first artists since like a living thing. classical antiquity regularly to make Historians like to celebrate Don - large sculptures on the basis of three- atello for groundbreaking achieve- dimensional preparatory models in ments such as making the first bronze wax or clay rather than drawings. It was statue since antiquity in his David likely Ghiberti who devised this inno- for the Medici, or devising a way to vation, based on his experience work- apply the rules of single-point perspec- ing with gold, for which model-making tive to sculpture in his of Saint was common, although in much smaller George and the Dragon. These were dimensions. accomplishments of great significance This development had many advan- for the development of art, but still tages. Fundamentally, it allowed artists Donatello: Abraham and Isaac, 1421 they were secondary to his principal to experiment in the design of statuary artistic ambition: to show the power with far greater liberty. Rather than One of Donatello’s favorite subjects bakuk can be translated as “burden,” and the drama of the human response conceiving sculptures in relation to the was the depiction of a holy person who and never has the trial of prophecy to contact with the divine. Throughout rectilinear planes of the quarried block, had suffered an acutely painful religious been more vividly represented than in his career, he depicted holy persons, artists could now, from the start, imag- experience and had thereby won divine Donatello’s statue. The artist portrays rapt in religious ecstasy and transfig- ine their statues as figures that stood wisdom beyond the limits of human the holy man as harrowed and ravaged ured by revelation, not only because and moved freely. This innovation was understanding. Examples of this from by the revelation that he has seen and his commissions required him to, but noted by Leon Battista Alberti in his his late works include his painted wood must now convey. Wrapped in mas- because experience of the sacred was Treatise on Statuary, perhaps written of about 1455 (also sive drapery that is at once weighty what he yearned for personally. In art in the 1430s, where he says that mod- in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, and floating, Habbakuk hovers and he was a naturalist but one whose idea els permit the sculptor to depict greater but alas not in the show), in which stares, a visitor from a realm where we of nature included the unseen and the movement of the limbs and more com- she is represented as a toothless crone mere mortals dare not go. His gigantic unearthly as well as the visible and the plex surfaces. praying in the desert, or his Resur- mouth, cut deep into his head and wide mundane. We can see exactly what Alberti rection on the pulpit of San Lorenzo across his face, is open to speak and the In the Bible Habbakuk warned means when we look at the Abraham (1460–1466), where a haggard Christ words that it will emit are sure to be against those who would seek to make and Isaac made by Donatello and a in a filthy winding sheet looks like he fearsome. The fiery text of his speech idols, “Woe unto to him that saith to young assistant, Nanni di Bartolo, in still stinks from the grave. Donatello’s in the Bible is a call of warning and the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, 1421 for a niche on the cathedral’s bell portrayal of sacred subjects was com- despair, as much as a prayer. It begins, Arise.” Yet this seems to be exactly the tower, the Campanile. The first monu- pletely at odds with the usual approach “O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou kind of command Donatello gave his mental multifigure sculpture of the of the time: most artists depicted saints wilt not hear! even cry unto thee of vio- Habbakuk. Like a Renaissance magus, Renaissance—it is over six feet tall—it as beyond the reach of suffering, even lence, and thou wilt not save!” Near the he believed the world was full of spirits, depicts the moment when Abraham, when they were shown undergoing end the book tells in brief but agonizing and he wanted his sculptures to palpi- hearing the angel of the Lord, relents in martyrdom. detail of what he has suffered for his di- tate with life.

14 The New York Review