Donatello's Technique of Reliefs | elwin®

Welcome to the Elwin channel where you get a glimpse into our philosophy for life and design. The world remains so full of Donatello's works that it may be said with confidence that no artist has ever produced more than he did. Giorgio Vasari. And now it's time for our fun fact. Ever thought about the strangeness of certain food or beverage chains being built in each corner of Well, it was apparently a thing back then during the Renaissance too, but with Catholic churches. There were at least 60 of them at only a few hundred feet away from each other, and this was within the mere limits of the walls of Florence. While following along with our Renaissance series videos, we hope you've been enjoying learning about the four most prominent figures, Donatello, da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Although they all revolutionized this era of the 14th century in Italy, Donatello was most definitely the forefather and pioneer of the arts who paved the way for the Renaissance to take place. Today, we are revisiting Donatello's career and expertise with a strong emphasis on the method called schiacciato. As versatile as he was in all mediums of the art, his great prominence comes from discovering a way to create this type of wall art that is almost impossibly too shallow to carve out, unless you are that good like Donatello. Schiacciato by definition simply means flattened out or crushed, referring to relief carvings that were so popular at the time. Sometimes people call it schiacciato, which holds the same meaning. Schiacciato is particularly impressive because the carved out space coming out of a flat surface is extremely shallow, at only a few millimeters deep. The term relief comes from the Italian word which derives from the definition to raise up. Relief artwork is pretty much any carving that has figures and images coming out of a flat surface in a convex manner, but sometimes they can even go inward in a concave manner. Let's put it this way, in a sense the US coins, most notably the quarter, are shallow or low reliefs with a convex image popping out of the metal. Before Donatello's work of basso rilievo, meaning low relief, the most popular and well-known style was the alto rilievo, which means the outlines were raised really high. A great example of this is a traditional almost statue-like ornamentations we see on ancient churches and buildings from the gothic period. They almost look like semi-statues popping out of the wall. Now on a related note, let's turn our attention to the Asian continent. Ever thought about those elaborate, mesmerizing, and almost mystical figures carved out on temples? A great number of high reliefs are found in regions like India and China, where buddhism and hinduism influence a lot of the culture. And then there's a middle relief or mezzo rilievo, which you probably guessed it, is executed with outlines that fall right in between high and low reliefs. So now let's jump right into some of Donatello's greatest achievements with schiacciato reliefs. By far, out of the many relief works he created, four of them are considered most famous. There's a Pazzi Madonna carved on marble stone, featuring the Virgin Mary and her baby Jesus. What is remarkable about this depiction of Mary, aside from the astonishing skill of Donatello's carving, is that it showed the complete opposite of what people were used to. This Virgin Mary showed emotion, warmth, affection for her child, as opposed to the stoic and cold images that were popular before his time. Donatello was, indeed, a great expressionist with all of his artworks. Then came the Feast of Herod, a truly grim and disturbing bronze sculpture. As usual, using only millimeters in depth on the surface, he managed to create an entire scene using linear perspective with people sitting in the back, and with King Herod displaying a face of disgust as John the Baptist's head is brought to him on a platter. I know, gross and disturbing are a bit of an understatement. Furthermore, there's the ascension with Christ giving the keys to Saint Peter on marble. With the vaso-relievo's shallow depth, it seems as though it automatically gives an almost ethereal and surreal look to Christ as he slowly ascends. Lastly, we have the Madonna and Donatello used a medium of polychrome terracotta for this warm and intimate scene between the child and mother. As you can see, Donatello was a spirit that ventured out to do the things that most didn't dare to. We think more attention and credit should be given to him for his outstanding talent and ability to display emotions through his masterpieces. So, which one of the four relief works stand out to you the most? Let us know in the comment section down below. We appreciate your support of this channel, so please continue to like our videos for more unique content.