Sculpture
in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces From Florence Cathedral
20
February - 14 June 2015
Museum
of Biblical Art, NYC
I have known it was coming for
months, but if it were not for a wonderful friend calling my attention
to an
article in the NY Times yesterday, I should not have
been aware that Sculpture
in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces From Florence Cathedral was
opening yesterday. That these 23 sculptures—including
three masterpieces by Donatello—from
the Museo
del Duomo in Florence have travelled anywhere
is incredible (it is due to the Museo del Duomo
being closed until 29 October for the extensive renovations that have been
going on); that they are going to be in NYC is a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity; and that they are at Museum
of Biblical Art (Ken Johnson's article in the NY Times
describes MoBiA as, "a 10-year-old institution not noted
for producing once-in-a-lifetime shows, and it’s a beautiful, soul-stirring
exhibition. It’s also a terrific valedictory show, as the museum will be
leaving its current location at the end of June because of the building’s
recent sale by the American Bible Society.") is
weird (and due primarily to the fact that it was the only appropriate museum
space that could accommodate the timing of the exhibition's
availability); but it is the only place that Sculpture
in the Age of Donatello will be on display!
Donatello is my favorite sculptor of all times—and the subject of my undergraduate dissertation, Donatello
and the Tragic Sense of Life (New Haven, 1968). And Lo Zuccone, one of the three major works by Donatello
in the show, is perhaps my favorite piece of sculpture in the world:
Sculpture
in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces From Florence Cathedral
20
February - 14 June 2015
Museum
of Biblical Art
1865
Broadway at 61st St., NYC
Tuesday-Sunday:
10am-6pm
BUY TIMED TICKETS
- $12, Seniors and Students $9
The principle curator for this
fabulous exhibition was Monsignor Timothy Verdon, the Director
of the Museo dell'Opera
del Duomo (the "Duomo"
being the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, and the Museum being
the institution that usually houses these and the other masterpieces of art
from the Duomo and its Baptistery and
Campanile), who, along with co-curator Daniel Zolli,
co-authored the terrific catalogue for the show, also entitled Sculpture
in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces From Florence Cathedral. (This beautifully illustrated and deeply
thoughtful book is extremely worth purchasing, and is available at MoBiA or
online at Amazon.com. The essays are informative and scholarly as
well as very enjoyably readable, and the plates from the exhibition alone are
worth the price of the book. It is
something you will want for your library.) Mons. Verdon, who got his Ph.D. in
History of Art at Yale under Charles Seymour, Jr., (who was also
one of my mentors at Yale in the sculpture of the early Renaissance
in Florence), has created a marvelously selected, beautifully displayed
exhibition. I went to it twice on its opening day yesterday, and shall
return for many follow-up visits.
The exhibit begins with a late Trecento (14th Century) sculptural group,
usually attributed to the important sculptor Giovanni d’Ambrogio, a
Annunciation
scene with Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary:
This beautiful pair of figures is
really far more Late Gothic than Renaissance;
nevertheless, Giovanni was an
extremely important influence on the sculpture of the Quattrocento, and Stefano Nicastri
points out in the catalogue that he made a particular impression on Nanni di Banco. (p. 120)
Next in the exhibition are two
reliefs, both attributed to either the young Donatello or to Nanni di Banco—and
either is a reasonable attribution, as they are both quite masterful, although
lacking the developed excellence of Donatello’s
work. The first, Vir Dolorum (Man of Sorrow), was the keystone of
the arch of the Porta della Mandorla, the north entrance to the Duomo:
The second relief, also originally
on the Porta della Mandorla, is of Hercules:
There follow two Profetini
(“little prophets”), one questionably attributed to Donatello—although I don’t buy the attribution—and the other
questionably attributed to Nanni di Banco—and,
while I’m far less conversant with his oeuvre, I’m not sure I buy that,
either. (I do not find them nearly
interesting enough to include here.)
There then follow two prophets, far
more interesting and well-done than the former pair (but still not worth my
time to include), these attributed possibly to Donatello or to Nanni di Bartolo (Il Rosso), or others; and, while I have no conviction, my
temptation is to think the latter is the most likely.
A major moment in the exhibition is
the pair of monumental statues of seated Evangelists that once flanked the
entrance to the cathedral: the one on the left St. Luke the Evangelist
(1408-13) by Nanni di Banco, the one on the right St.
John the Evangelist (1408-15) by Donatello:
These sculptures were designed to be
placed in shallow niches some 10 feet off the ground. In Sculpture
in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces From Florence Cathedral,
these and the Lo Zuccone and the Abraham
and Isaac are placed on pedestals that lift the works several feet off
the floor, their bases are still below eye level—not the vantage from which
they were designed to be viewed. With Nanni di Banco’s work, that is fine, as he
did not specifically alter it to take the viewing position into account. As Charles
Seymour always insisted, in the case of Donatello’s San Giovanni, however, it makes an
enormous difference. Viewed head on as in the photograph above, Donatello’s statue flattens out and is
relatively weak: the torso is awkwardly elongated, the hands are disturbingly
large, the drapery is too complicated, and the position and expression of the
face is simply not comprehensible. But
viewed from below (do remember to
kneel before this work, as from your knees your eye level will be approximately
at the correct viewing height), as intended, his St. John takes on the
power and proper proportions it was designed to have: the lines of the face
deepen and become more profound and meaningful, the torso takes on its correct
proportion to the rest of the body, the drapery and the thighs suddenly make
sense, and the hands become realistically powerful, assertive elements, correct
in the foreshortening of the perspective of the whole:
Nanni’s St. Luke is still an amazing piece of sculpture, however. It has a grandeur and elegance, even if it
lacks the power and depth of Donatello’s
St.
John. It conveys an aloofness, almost a haughtiness, in its visage and the
tilt of its head; and its lowered eyes create a look that meets and holds your
gaze. As Mons. Verdon notes in the catalogue, “The chief beauty of Nanni’s statue—what ‘saves’ it, as it were—is the lively
intelligence with which the sculptor imbues his figure. …this underscoring of intellectual vitality
reflects what Scripture tells us of the Evangelist’s character.” (p. 31) This comes through vividly in the
detail below:
We come now to Donatello’s works for the façade of the
Campanile—some of the most powerful sculptures of all time. The exhibition has two of them: Abraham
and Isaac and Lo Zuccone. These works were placed in niches high above
street level (the exhibition claims 70 feet up, and, while I thought it was
somewhat less, I rather suspect they have the accurate figure), as can be seen
in the photograph of the Campanile, below:
As was clear in the discussion above of St. John the Evangelist,
Donatello carefully took into account the angle from which his work was to be
viewed; and in these later works, it is completely clear that one must take the
great height of their placement into account when viewing them. It would not be desirable actually to
position these works at their proper height, as one would be unable to
appreciate the splendor of their detail; nevertheless, I implore you to
attempt to view them from approximately the correct vantage point—which, in
this case, means seating yourself on the floor before them. They
simply do not compose properly viewed head on.
You actually need to sit down on the floor to view them. This is not an exaggeration—if anything, it
is an understatement: on their old low
pedestals in the Museo del Duomo, it was best to lie on the floor to view
them (although a bit awkward)! Try for
yourself the comparison of looking at them head-on with viewing them from
below. Sitting also actually allows you
to spend the time to take them in more fully, too. Do not neglect to move to a position 30-40º to
either side of each statue, as well as head on in order to see the full
richness of what Donatello has created. If you have hesitation about
spending that much time on the floor, do it at very least for the most extraordinary
of these work, Lo Zuccone. To make the point, below I juxtapose two
similar photographs of Il Popolano, the one on the left taken from below, and
the other head-on—and if that doesn’t convince you to get down on the floor,
nothing will! (While Il Popolano is unfortunately not part of this
exhibition, I do include a discussion of this magnificent piece in this Culture
Alert.) You will note that when viewed head-on, the body of the prophet dissolves
and loses its strength and three-dimensional presence; the drapery becomes
shallow and loses its power; and the intensity of the left hand and the
statement it makes clutching the scroll of the prophet’s message all but
disappears. Having made this point,
though, I encourage you to focus only on the photograph on the left.
So, seat yourself before Donatello’s 1421 Abraham and
Isaac and enjoy! While the design of this piece was certainly Donatello’s,
the execution was done in part by his assistant, Nanni
di Bartolo (Il Rosso). The conception and the complex, intertwined
composition must be Donatello’s.
In this piece, the height of the dramatic moment has passed. Unlike Brunelleschi’s competition panel
of this scene, which captures the very highest point of the tension and drama,
here the tension is beginning to relax:
Abraham’s right arm is starting to slacken, and the knife is slipping
away from Isaac’s throat; Isaac is in a state of passive acceptance; the angel
has come and gone. Nevertheless, what
remains is the close, human contact of this father and son, with nothing to
mitigate the immediate implications of what Abraham had been about to do. Abraham’s pained expression gives the
impression that he is well aware of the horror of the deed he had been about to
commit.
We now come to the very pinnacle of the
exhibition—and for me, the pinnacle of sculpture in general, Donatello’s magnificent Lo Zuccone (1423-26).
There
is a controversy as to which prophet is represented in this work (and a slight
uncertainty about the exact dating). The
descriptive names are not in doubt: Lo Zuccone
(“The
Pumpkin-head”) clearly refers to this work, as Il Popolano
(“The
Man of the People”) clearly refers to my other favorite of Donatello’s
prophets (not in this exhibition); but the names of the prophets they represent
are—one is a Jeremiah, the other a Habukkuk. (The Habakkuk [as referred to in the
records of the time] is the later of the two works, but it is not clear to
which of the actual statues this name—and therefore this dating—applies. I go along with Janson and Seymour on
this (rather than with Pope-Hennessey,
et al.) suspecting that Lo Zuccone is the Jeremiah and Il Popolano
is Habakkuk;
but this is not conclusive. So I’ll
stick to using the descriptive names for practical purposes. Here, then, is a
photo of Lo Zuccone:
Lo
Zuccone
is a work of art that is imbued with
psychological complexity, intense emotion, human nobility, and a view of the
world—and of human action within it—that is radically different from everything
which has gone before it. Allow yourself
to stand (or, more correctly, sit) in
awe of it.
By your leave, I am here going to
quote from my undergraduate dissertation, Donatello and the Tragic Sense of
Life. (Please pardon my 21 year-old
prose, which itself is now almost a half-century
old!):
The Zuccone shows the same awareness
of the tragic potential of the prophetic life, yet in this statue one feels a
very different response to this situation.
The Zuccone
is a man who faces the same adversity and rejection in the course of
“maintaining his ways” as did the Popolano, but he, unlike the other prophet has come to
accept this adversity. This is not to
say that he accepts the world’s iniquity, or that he has given up the painful
process of trying to eradicate it, for there is a feeling of resolve about the Zuccone that is
at least as strong as that of the Popolano. It is a
quiet resolve, however, unlike the fiery, unwavering determination of the Popolano. The Zuccone is strong: a look at the marvelously muscled right
arm tells the observer that this is a man of great physical stamina, if not of
the great physical activity which was reflected in the tensed muscles of the Popolano: but
more importantly, his knowing gaze betokens a wisdom that will enable him to
persist in the face of adversity. There
is an aura of assurance about this figure that makes one certain that when he
feels he is right his resolve will be unshakable, and that he could never be
forced to abandon a cause in which he believes.
Nevertheless, one feels that this man has come to accept the suffering
he must undergo in the process of propounding such a cause.
The suffering of the Zuccone is
evident. His face is sad and somewhat
pained. Problems have deeply furrowed
his brow. His eyes are deep and
heavy. Yet there is no trace of pathos.
One recognizes that this man has suffered, but one does not pity
him. One cannot pity him, for one is forced to admire his greatness—and that
greatness would seem to have come, at least in party, from his suffering. His great bald head, his knowing glance, his
aura of assurance—his calm resolve combines with a sense of the adversity he
has had to face to give an impression of a man with the highest form of wisdom—that
which, in the words of Aeschylus, ‘comes through suffering alone.”
The Zuccone does not look away in
anger, but rather looks down at his people compassionately. Unlike the Popolano, whose lips were pressed tightly together, the Zuccone’s lips are slightly
parted. He is not tense, he is relaxed:
he is not angry, he is tired. His right
arm, almost identical in pose to that of the Popolano, is totally different in
feeling. Whereas the latter’s arm was
strained and tense, that of the Zuccone is relaxed.
The hand does not press against the thigh, but rather rests there is a
loose belt. His drapery is not agitated
and energetic like that of Popolano. In the Zuccone there is a great, heavy
mantle that hangs over the shoulder and down the front of the figure. This mantle is cut so deeply into the
marble—the folds are often ten to sixteen centimeters deep, whereas the abse of the statue itself is only thirty-eight centimeters
in depth—that one is given the impression that it is a great weight that
actually bears down upon the figure.
This sense of the prophet
bearing up under a great load was precisely the effect that Donatello wished to
create. Physically, the weight may be
that of the mantle, but thematically it is the demands of the prophetic
life. Donatello is depicting the prophet
who has come to accept his role—not becoming angry at the adversity his must
face, but rather ‘bearing up’ under the great weight of his task.
In both the Popolano and the Zuccone, the
power Donatello achieves is derived from his recognition of the tragic
potential in the role of the prophet.
His interpretation here has little to do with the Medieval
picture of the prophet as visionary.
There men are not otherworldly in the least. They are intimately and immediately concerned
with the events of this world. It is not
even so very essential to understand what the individual message of each of
these men is. The real importance lies
in the recognition of what they must go through to propound this message. Donatello saw the tragic implications of
prophecy in the Old Testament sense, and he explored these implications in
terms of what they mean for individual human beings.
There can be no denying the
individuality of the Popolano
and the Zuccone. Their totally different reactions to what was
essentially the identical situation indicate a fundamental difference in
personality that seems to be consistently carried out throughout the entirety
of the pieces. The great individuality
of the statues has even led to much speculation about their possibly being
portraits. There is a legend that
developed early in the history of these works that they were in fact the
likenesses of Giovanni di Barduccio Cherichini and Francesco Soderini. Unfortunately, these speculations are, as
Janson says, only “fanciful psychological interpretations” That they exist, however, is an
indication of the highly individualized personalities of the statues they deal
with.
Donatello was able, within a
Christian context, to see in the theme of the prophets all the tragic potential
that the ancient Hebrews had envisioned—and perhaps more. In the true spirit of the Renaissance and of
the tragic artist, he examined this potential in terms of what it meant for
individual human beings. Even at the
stage of his fullest recognition of the tragic implications of this theme, he
was willing to admit that differences in personality could greatly affect the
nature of hum action in the tragic situation.
In examining individual reactions, Donatello managed to arrive at what
Charles Seymour has called a “’portrait’ of the tragic genius of prophecy;” for
man, in the view of Donatello, could have the stature, the courage, and the
individual assertiveness to exist in the tragic mode.
Although not in this
exhibition, I include here a description of Il Popolano (1427-35):
Again, I quote from my undergraduate
dissertation:
Donatello most fully realizes the tragic potential of the prophetic
theme in his last two prophets, Il Popolano
and Lo
Zuccone.
In these two figures Donatello
embodies all the powerful human drama of tragedy.
Il
Popolano
is a strong-willed, determined man who faces his task with unswerving
directness. Donatello has depicted him in the very act of delivering his
message: in his left hand he clutches
the scroll which contains that message.
This is not a scroll which he displays, as did the Beardless Prophet. That earlier prophet was cast as a Roman
orator, and his scroll was a formal device of rhetoric, used by him as a
prop. The scroll of Il Popolano
is not something he uses visually to inspire his audience; on the contrary, it
is something from which he draws his personal inspiration. This scroll is his own
little fragment: it is a humble
document, crumpled from long use. It
draws its significance not from its physical characteristics, but from the
moral importance of its contents; and it becomes an important part of the
statue not through optically asserting itself on the viewer’s senses, but
through psychologically asserting itself on the viewer’s overall comprehension
of the work. It is important to the
statue because it is so greatly important to the prophet. The scroll symbolizes the message to which he
has chosen to devote his life. He faces
his people to propound that message, holding his scroll before him almost as if
for moral support.
It must be remembered that the message of the prophet was
never an easy one for his audience to accept.
The Old Testament prophet had a message that was primarily moral and a
role that was essentially that of social reform. His was the difficult task of convincing his
fellow men of their injustice and iniquity.
Moreover, he had to get them to change their ways. People are never readily convinced that they
should change. Thus the work of the
prophet was always met with much resistance.
Il
Popolano
would appear to react angrily to the resistance he meets in propounding his
message. The intense furrow of his brow,
his tight frown, the tensed muscles of his face, the strained sinews which
stand out on his neck—his expression reveals an angry disapproval, not only of
his people’s iniquity, but also of their blindness. He has tried to warn them, and they have not accepted
his message.
Il
Popolano
looks angrily away from his people. His
gaze is off to the left and up—above the heads of his audience. He averts his gaze not to ignore his people
and become introspective, nor to turn to an ascetic mysticism by withdrawing
from the demands of the situation, but rather to gather his energy for another
volley. He is disgusted with his people
and his entire figure reflects the tension of his anger: the muscles of his right arm are tense and
strained, causing the veins to stand out sharply; his right hand is angrily
pressed so hard against his thigh that it gives energy to the powerful
undulations of drapery that seem to spread away from this gesture as ripples
spread from a disturbance on water.
Nevertheless, he will not abandon those who have caused this
anger. The determination in his gaze is
as obvious as the anger, and in his entire figure one feels a solidity that
reflects his resolve. His strong
conviction obviously will triumph over those feelings which try to shake
it. He looks away to regain his
composure, but he will again return to his task. He faces great adversity, but he will never
yield to that adversity.
There is in Il Popolano
a powerful realization of the tragic implications of the role of the
prophet. In it one can see what it
means, in human terms, to devote one’s life to propounding a message that
people do not wish to hear. One feels
with the prophet the anger and frustration of being rejected by the very people
to whom he has dedicated his life. One
feels the suffering of a man who is willing to step outside the system and
question accepted norms. In the fiery
spirit of Il Popolano, Donatello
seems to have recaptured something of the Old Testament, tragic concept of the
prophetic life.
To
return to Sculpture
in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces From
Florence Cathedral, there is a wonderful bronze Head
with traces of gilding by Donatello ca. 1439:
There
are also three hexagonal marble panels done for the Campanile in 1437-9 by Luca della
Robbia. I
usually dislike the work of Luca della Robbia,
perhaps because much of it—particularly the highly-glossed, colored enameled
terra-cotta works—is far too romantic for my taste. But these simple works I actually found to be
quite lovely. I include here his The Art of
Dialectic,
and his The Art of Music,
Then there is a section on the
influence of Ghiberti—who had a
complex influence on the work of this period, but this is not the place for me
to go into my opinions on it. There is a
very interesting piece in the catalogue by Marco
Ciatti on Ghiberti’s
North
Doors for the Baptistery and their restoration. There are three bronze replicas of panels
from Ghiberti’s doors (cast in the
same process that was done to create replacements on the Baptistery for the
actual panels which were restored and removed to the Museo del Duomo), accompanied by maiella stone reliefs done by the Master of Castel Sangro, of which Stefano
Nicastri writes in the catalogue, “Scholars have
shown clear iconographic and stylistic affinities between these works and
Ghiberti’s nearly contempory reliefs for the North Dorrs of Florence’s baptistery.” (p. 166)
Here is a photograph of one of Ghiberti’s actual panels, the Adoration of the Magi (1403-39):
And here, Master of Castel Sangro’s related Adoration of the Magi (1403-39):
Finally there are three of the
wooden models of the dome of the Duomo, attributed to
the great Brunelleschi, architect of
the dome—and, in my ‘umble opinion, one of the three
figures, along with Donatello and Masaccio, who were at the very heart of
the Renaissance in Florence. Here is a
photograph of the model for the dome itself:
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