Season 1 Episode 5 - Donatello

With a laissez-faire attitude to money and a confirmed bachelor, Donatello was nonetheless the artist the Medici couldn't stop commissioning. Giorgio Vasari, the chronicler of Renaissance art, called him a most rare sculptor and marvellous statuary. His bronze David was the first freestanding nude since ancient Rome. Giorgio Vasari tells us that when Donatello was working on one of his prophet sculptures, he became so frustrated that he shouted, speak damn you speak! This is Italy Beyond the Guidebook and today it's all about Donatello. So in the last episode we talked about Brunelleschi and he and Donatello were close companions. They went to Rome together and they studied antique. How did that relationship help shape Donatello as an artist? Well both men were extremely talented and competitive, traits that helped form their friendship. They're able to indulge in their shared passion of rediscovering the ancient world in all of its forms. In their beliefs however, they are extremely different. For Donatello, the relationship with man and the world is a dramatic one. There's no certain tree. Therefore his art is much more expressive, it's dramatic and he uses different mediums, be it terracotta, bronze, marble, stucco. For Brunelleschi, the relationship between man and the world is peaceful by virtue of reason. They obey the same mathematical laws. His research was based on the harmony of geometric measurements, the circle, the square. Filippo Brunelleschi was 10 years Donatello's senior. He helped shape Donatello's style with regards to this mathematical proportion. They did argue though. There was certainly a falling out between Filippo Brunelleschi and Donatello with regards to the decoration of the old sacristy of San Lorenzo, the private chapel of the Medici family. Also they have a difference of opinion when it comes to a crucifix that Donatello has carved, where Brunelleschi remarks, well that's just a farmer on the cross. I did look at those two yesterday, oddly enough, and I'm going to go with Brunelleschi on this one. I didn't really, from just a bog standard person's point of view, I really didn't like Donatello's one. I'm sure you're going to tell me why I should like it better, but I'm with Brunelleschi. With regards to those two crucifixes, I prefer Brunelleschi's as well. I suppose that's just us though, isn't it? Okay, so Donatello never married. He had no known family of his own and he seems to be genuinely indifferent to money. He famously kept a basket of coins in his workshop and people could just help themselves to it. So what do we know about his personal life, if anything? We don't know a lot. Very little is known about his life, apart from the words written by Giorgio Vasari that you've mentioned, our first art historian, and the words written in his book, The Lives of the Artists. We know that Donatello was born in Florence, we think in 1386, although the date is undocumented. The son of Orsa, his mother, and Niccolo di Bettobardi, a wool carder. If you don't know what a wool carder is, which I didn't, to be quite honest, it's somebody that prepares raw wool fibre for spinning and dyeing. As a young teen, Donatello was protected. What did you do? Sorry, I keep interrupting. I did that when I was a girl guide. Oh right, okay. Because we did spin it, I don't know, it was one of those badges that I never actually finished getting. But yeah, when you've got the two brushes which have got hooks on them and you get the wool between it and you basically brush it so that it becomes a thread that you can spin with. Sorry, carry on. Well, it's a very important job considering that, you know, this is where Florence is starting to make its money, so it's an important job. However, we digress. As a young teen, Donatello was protected by the Martelli family, a very noble family who had a lot of properties in Florence. In fact, a street is named after them, and it seems they realise his potential. There is little known about his apprenticeship. He doesn't seem to have had a teacher, although his relationship with a sculptor called Nanni di Banco, who was a proto-Renaissance artist, is said to have influenced his early style. In fact, we have the first humanisation of the figure. His relationship, as mentioned before, with Filippo Brunelowski also plays an important role in Donatello's development, certainly with mathematical proportion. It's after Donatello's trip to Rome with Filippo, we find him back in Florence, and he's assisting Lorenzo Ghiberti on the creation of the reliefs for the doors of the baptistery. So we can see that Donatello is also able to distinguish work and friendship, because we know that Filippo Brunelowski is not exactly a great fan of Lorenzo Ghiberti, having lost the competition for the north doors to his younger rival. Courteous and better towards his friends than towards himself. Disinterested in money, sharing the profits of the workshop with his assistants. This isn't to say that he didn't recognise the value of his works though. Okay, so he knew what to charge, but then when he got the money he didn't really give a toss as to what happened to it. Yeah, he'd leave the bag of coins at the entrance of his workshop. His assistants can help himself, but if somebody didn't appreciate his work, it didn't have to be in terms of monetary value, but I suppose that artistic value, he'd rather destroy the work than give it to the person. Wow, okay. I suppose what you think of as an artist in a pure form, as in my art is the most important thing, the money is a secondary concern. Exactly, yeah. Okay, now before Donatello, the sculpture was a little more, well, decorative. It was there to tell a story, but it wasn't necessarily about beauty itself. They were there just to be looked at, you know. So you go into a church, there's a sculpture of, I don't know, the Virgin Mary. Oh look, there's Mary, recognisable. She's there for a reason, but not as art per se. So how did he change that, Donatello? Well, Donatello's earliest works were commissioned him by the Cathedral and the Guild Church of Orsanmichaeli. One of his first commissions is a marble David, initially destined for the external spares of the Cathedral. Ultimately, it's placed as a symbol of the Republic in front of the seat of government. David, you can see, is of that earlier style. It's gothic, so it's those elongated figures. Then we have San Giovanni the Evangelist, this is Saint John the Evangelist, and we see that Donatello carves him with very heavy drapery that's falling in large folds, which is outlining his shape. So for the first time, Donatello also is involving the spectator, because he's carving his figures with the viewer in mind, in proportion to the distance of the viewer, because Saint John the Evangelist was actually to be placed on the facade of the Cathedral. He carved him not as an idealized saint, but as a man with expression. This statue was to inspire Michelangelo in his depiction of Moses for the tomb of Pope Julius II. Okay, so at Orsanmichaeli we have Saint George. He liked Saint George, he did a few Saint Georges, didn't he, to my recollection. Anyway, this cited as the first truly Renaissance figure, because he looks like he's about to do something the way he stood with his shield and the tilt of his body, etc. Did he study anatomy, Donatello, or was he just a bit more natural, as it were? Well, we can imagine he did, because he was extremely talented in this regard, this aspect, but there is no documental evidence. What is innovative with regards to Saint George, our first Renaissance hero, our Christian soldier who liberates his people, killing a dragon and saving a princess, is for the first time Donatello applies linear perspective in the marble predella. This low bas-relief, an invention by Donatello, provides depth and is the first example of single-point perspective in marble. It was in 1413 that Filippo Brunelleschi had conducted his experiment on linear perspective. In Saint George, though, we see Donatello's study of ancient statuary, proportion, geometric form and weight. We notice his hip is rotated to the front, creating this movement within quite a confined space, because there is actually a staircase running behind that particular niche. We see with Saint George's face that furrowed brow, as he's studying his opponent, ready for action, as you said. Michelangelo's David has a very similar facial expression. The success of Saint George also meant more commissions for Donatello, which include the five statues for the bell tower. Notable, and one of my favorites, is the sacrifice of Isaac, because Donatello manages to capture a moment within stone. You see that Abraham has got his son ready. His son is kneeling below him. He's pulled back the hair of his son. He has the knife in place. Then you see that Donatello's carved Abraham just looking when the angel appears to him. He's carved that his hand is slackened. He captures that one movement of him looking to the angel, and then his hand slackening. One moment in stone, one action. The other great statue that Donatello did is Zucconi, who's called the Pumpkin Head. We see a prophet, a bald prophet. Actually, legend is telling us it was inspired by a well-known character of Florence. It was called Giovanni di Barduccio Chierichini. Donatello's carved this wide-eyed, almost spiritual maniac, with his mouth open, almost mad in this spiritual ecstasy, kind of chuntering to himself. People tend to look at that and, to begin with, think, it's a bit rubbish, isn't it? Once you get the idea of him, this bald-headed maniac, who's quite skeletal with all of the drapery, almost engulfing this frame, then you understand Donatello a little bit more and understand how brilliant this statue actually is. Giorgio Vasari, full of praise for Donatello in his Lives of the Artists, describing him as a genius whose work surpassed that of the ancients. Donatello's works were considered more like the distinguished works of the ancient Greeks and Romans than those of any artist who has ever existed. What does that tell us about him? Well, it tells us what Vasari thought about him anyway. But he was the first one to really pick up the ancient stuff and bring it back again, wasn't he? Yeah, but he's adding that character and expression and drama into the works, and he's reinvented that ultra-shallow relief carving, which creates this illusion of depth, which also influences the painters of the day as well. One of the most revolutionary Florentine painters of the early 1400s was Masaccio, and he was being influenced by what was happening around him in Florence. Filippo Brunellowski, with that perspective, and Donatello working and showing perspective and depth and atmosphere within his marble works as well. Okay, cool. He's been to Rome, born in Florence, trundled off to Rome, came back, and then he went to Padua. He did go to Rome again, it's got to be said, but then you're right, he does go to Padua, and he stays there for about 10 years. Yeah, and it was there that he produced the Gattameletta, which we tried to see when we were in Padua two years ago, but it was typically surrounded by scaffolding. But that was the first large-scale equestrian bronze since antiquity. So what pulled him north to Padua? Well, I suppose in Florence, he'd really reached the peak. I mean, his works were everywhere, on the cathedral, the bell tower, the guild church, San Michele, on the seat of government, Palazzo Vecchio, and maybe he was looking for a new challenge to dominate and influence the artistic scene elsewhere. And what better city than Padua, with a university that was leading the study at the time on antiquity. But yeah, he stays there for 10 years, he establishes a workshop, so he's got a school of collaborators, apprentices, local artisans. While in Padua, though, he's working almost exclusively in bronze. Do we know why? Well, bronze is very hard to work with. Extremely hard to work with. It's definitely showing that you are an artist with talent. And in fact, the Gata Melata monument was the first bronze equestrian statue since the Romans. Now, we've got to also remember that most of the bronze works in Rome had been melted down and used for other projects, cannons. The equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius was the exception. The Gata Melata monument was commissioned by the Serenissima of the Venetian Republic, and it was of Erasmo de' Narni, the captain-general of the Venetian Republic. This wasn't an imitation of the Roman Marcus Aurelius, though, because in Donatello's, he studies proportion, in particular the horse. You have lots of detail with regards to the saddle and also the expression of the captain. Donatello's bronze equestrian statue becomes a prototype of all following bronze equestrian statues. Okay, so he didn't just copy, he reinvented, and that became the template for all going forward from there. So 10 years in Padua, and then he returns back, and Massari, who has said how brilliant he is, now says that Florentines barely recognised his style when he got back. So what had changed, and did it get less attention than previously? Donatello returns to Florence because it seems he's unwell, and so he's going home to die in his birth city in Florence. Stylistically, you can see that he's coming towards the end of his life. Certainly when we look at his, I'd say the most fantastic work by Donatello is Mary Magdalene. He was a prolific artist who's worked with many materials, terracotta, marble, stucco, as we just said, bronze. With regards to Mary Magdalene, he's working with wood. In fact, he carves Mary Magdalene from the trunk of a poplar tree that was already 30 years old. He carves her and paints her with natural colours. He adds a gilt effect, a stucco. He only uses a nail in two places, one for the nose, one for her hair, where it comes down as if it's a belt. This is Mary Magdalene as you've never seen her before. She's gaunt, isn't she? Let's put that mildly. Yeah, yeah, it's dramatic. I'd say the Mary Magdalene is almost, if you look, if when you look at it today, it's almost contemporary work. That's how brilliant Donatello is. Does look like she's been on the agenda. Well, exactly, because it, and this is the, this is a brilliant thing with Donatello is that play also with how you feel when you look at his works. When you look at it, you think, wow, that's brutal. It's ugly. You know, she's consumed by fasting and abstinence, you know, collarbones on show, hardly any teeth left. You know, her cheekbones is all sallow here. But actually, what he's captured is the moment that she's been waiting for. It's that moment of the transcendence of the soul. And so for her, this is the most beautiful moment. This is why, although, yeah, I mean, Donatello had been prolific towards the end of his life, not so much. And, but this is, you know, one of his, his great works, bearing in mind he's in his seventies at the time, that it was carved in 1450. And ultimately it was placed within the Baptist in Florence, only to be removed because there's a flood and a catastrophic flood in Florence in 1966. She really is haggard and a hair sort of melds into the furs that she's wearing as her clothes. And, but yeah, it's the penitent Magdalene, isn't it? So she's been doing her penance after her hair has grown so long that it's covered really her naked sinfulness. Yeah. Before she met the man. Yeah. Okay. Let's go back a bit much as the Magdalene is incredible and go back to David, the bronze David, not the, not the other version. It's one of the most debated pieces of art from the Renaissance, probably. And we're going to cover that along with the other Davids that are in Florence in a future episode. So we're not going to go too deep, but why is it still so contested? Because I mean, when you look at him, he looks a bit of a dandy, doesn't he, David? He does. Well, yeah, when you, when you look at him, you're looking at that sensuality and also this, he's merging the civic and religious meaning of David. It's unique though, never to be repeated. Donatello throughout his career had had a very productive workshop, bit in Florence, bit in Padua with students, assistants, collaborators. He passed the baton to his contemporaries, certainly towards the end of his life as well, with regards to, you know, the new and up and coming artists such as Barocchio. Barocchio, who would also be at the head of a huge workshop and will have students such as Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Leonardo da Vinci, to name just a few. Donatello, though, will die and will have the honour of being buried in the San Lorenzo Church, which ultimately really becomes the parish church of the Medici family. He was their preferred sculptor and he was buried near to his patron Cosimo the Elder of the Medici family. So, next episode. Before I go, before, also I should say that the San Lorenzo Church, I suppose, bringing it round to this full, perfect circle, is that the San Lorenzo Church was the first Renaissance church in the world. Yeah. So, only right that one of the forefathers of the Renaissance should be buried there near his patron. Indeed. So, in the next episode, we will be looking at the Davids in Florence. So, Michelangelo's Davids, Donatello's Davids, any other Davids that we happen to unearth. So, if you have enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe, give a comment, and we hope to see you again in the next one. And take care. Bye. Bye.