“THE GATES OF PARADISE”
Baptistery, Florence
Technically—judged from the standpoint of workmanship in bronze—“The Creation Panel” is beyond criticism. Comparing it with a painting by Giotto, or, to take an artist of a later date, by Fra Angelico, we feel, however, that something is lacking. Though the subjects depicted are biblical, Ghiberti’s work lacks the spirituality which an artist working under the influence of Giotto, consciously or unconsciously, infused into his work. Italy in the fifteenth century had realized the fallacies that underlay the narrow creed of the Church and the too rigid philosophy of the Scholastics.
Ghiberti, like many another Italian artist, could not accept the judgment of the extreme ascetics who saw in the beauties of the human form only snares set by the devil to catch the souls of men. Whatever may have been Ghiberti’s personal religious belief, as an artist he knew that such a creed was impossible. He saw that the beauties which the eye could see were his raw material. The mystical artists of the Giottesque school would have cried with Watts, “I paint ideas, not things.” Ghiberti worked upon the principle that an artist holding such a creed only approaches success when he forgets his predilection for ideas in the interest aroused by the beauties of the natural world and particularly by the beauties of the human form.
At the very root of our argument lies the fact that these broader and more human views are traceable to the growing influence of the democracy in the Italian cities. It must never be forgotten that such a work as the “[Gates of Paradise]” was in every sense a public work. Its general design and its detailed progress were continually supervised by the hard-headed burghers of Florence. When, for instance, Ghiberti was instructed on January 2, 1425, by the consuls of the Guild of Merchants to commence the third pair of gates, he was not free to choose his own subjects. Here is an extract from the letter of Leonardo Bruni d’Arezzo, the Chancellor of the Republic, who actually drew up the general scheme. After detailing the subjects he added:
“It is necessary that he who has to design them should be well instructed in every story, so that he may dispose the characters and scenes to the best effect.... I have no doubt that the work as I have designed it will succeed well, but I should like to be near the artist that I may interpret to him the many meanings of the scenes.”
It was no small task which the good Chancellor set Ghiberti. Imagine the feelings of a twentieth-century sculptor suddenly faced with a demand to give expression to the following subjects in ten panels, within the limits set by a single door.
| I | II |
| Creation of Adam. | Adam, Eve, and children. |
| Creation of Eve. | The two sacrifices. |
| Temptation. | Death of Abel. |
| Expulsion from Eden. | Curse of Cain. |
| III | VII |
| Noah leaving Ark. | Moses on Sinai. |
| Noah’s sacrifice. | |
| Noah’s drunkenness. | |
| IV | VIII |
| Abraham and the Angels. | Joshua marching round Jericho. |
| The sacrifice of Isaac. | The Fall of Jericho. |
| V | IX |
| Isaac. | David and Goliath. |
| Esau hunting. | Defeat of Philistines. |
| The blessing of Jacob. | |
| VI | X |
| Sale of Joseph. | Queen of Sheba at |
| Pharaoh’s dream. | Solomon’s Court. |
| Joseph’s brethren in Egypt. |
Yet Ghiberti’s ingenuity was sufficient not only to make the designs but to overcome the immense technical difficulties incidental to carrying them out in bronze. Truth to tell, the commission should never have been given to a sculptor. In addition to the difficulties connected with his own art, Ghiberti was faced with the necessity of adding architectural and landscape backgrounds to his reliefs. He strove to solve problems of perspective which even the painters of his day had not mastered. Indeed, for the designer of the Baptistery gates, sculptural relief was rather a branch of the graphic arts than a part of the plastic arts, governed by the rules and subject to the limitations of sculpture. Ghiberti’s life’s work landed his art in a blind alley. For further progress it was necessary that sculpture should be once more informed with its own definite spirit. Ghiberti, or rather his patrons, had failed to realize that sculpture as a descriptive medium has its limitations. It cannot hope to rival painting in the multiplicity of subjects which it can depict with success. It must, therefore, confine itself to subjects which it can express clearly and vigorously.