DONATELLO AND THE CHURCH OF
OR SAN MICHELE
What was denied to Ghiberti was given to his assistant Donatello—the foremost sculptor of the transitional period which preceded Michael Angelo. By his example Donatello re-defined the proper limits and the fittest objects of the art of sculpture. His life’s work was one continued reiteration of the Hellenic lesson that sculpture is the concrete expression of man’s joyful interest in the human form. To the end, his figures never possessed the ideal grace with which Ghiberti endowed a hundred forms in the Baptistery panels. But Donatello had the essential quality of a true sculptor within him. He put aside all desire to rival the painter. He willed to express himself by form and form only. This fact alone invests his work with an importance and interest in the history of pure sculpture which the more graceful productions of Ghiberti cannot claim.
Donato di Betto Bardi, to give Donatello his correct title, was the son of a wool-comber. He had entered Ghiberti’s studio as an assistant in 1405, at the age of nineteen. His experience with Ghiberti gave him the technical skill to carry out an ambition that dated from boyhood. Before Donatello was thirty, the chances of the age gave him a series of unique opportunities of making his dreams realities.
As we have seen, a new class of patrons had arisen in Italy with fresh ambitions and ideals. In Florence, for instance, the mercantile class had gradually ousted the German nobles who had ruled in fief of the Emperor. By 1283 the wealthier guilds had established a form of government delegating all power to members of their own class. Under this Florence became more and more powerful. By 1406 Pisa was captured, and the last stronghold of the feudal party in Tuscany had fallen. During the last years of the fourteenth century Florence had prospered greatly. Trade developed. The manufacture of silk and wool brought a large measure of material prosperity. The pride of the burghers in their city increased correspondingly. The erection of the Baptistery gates must be regarded as only a single instance of a general tendency. All over Italy the case was the same. The appreciation of sculpture was no longer confined to a few score merchants and princes, as had been the case at Pisa. It had spread from the cloister and castle to the market square and the Guildhall.
The result of similar circumstances in the earlier history of sculpture will be remembered. In fifth-century Greece a keen appreciation of sculpture had been developed among a burgher population. Just as the proceeds of the commissions for athletic sculptures provided livelihoods for the budding artists of Greece, so the orders of the Florentine burghers offered at least a competence to a struggling Italian sculptor with a belief in the possibilities of his particular art. What the commission for the Baptistery gates did for Ghiberti, similar commissions did for Jacopo della Quercia, Donatello and the rest.
In dwelling upon the importance of such material considerations as these, we are in no way depreciating the zeal of either the Italian or the Hellenic sculptor, by his old patrons, the Guild of Merchants. It was followed by a long series of similar commissions. The Guild of Moneychangers realizing the credit which attached to its rival, desired Ghiberti to furnish a companion figure, “Saint Matthew,” which was in its place by 1422. Finally, the Guild of Wool Merchants employed Ghiberti to produce a “St. Stephen” for a third niche.
Long before this, other Florentine Guilds had joined in the public-spirited competition. Moreover, other sculptors were discovered. In 1416 Donatello had been commissioned by the Guild of Armourers to model a figure for Or San Michele. The result was the well-known “[Saint George].” It was followed by the statue of “Saint Mark,” of which Michael Angelo said “it would have been impossible to reject the Gospel from so straightforward a witness.” The “Saint Mark” is a typical work of Donatello’s first period (1405 to 1425). The whole conception of the Apostle is based upon a foundation of stern realism. Gothic strength rather than Attic grace is aimed at. Comparing it with such a work as Ghiberti’s “Saint Matthew,” we see at once that an immense step forward has been taken. The opportunity is nothing to Ghiberti. His deep knowledge of perspective is valueless, of course. His ingenuity in the elaboration of detail proves a drawback rather than an advantage. He produces a graceful lay figure. So with the “[Saint George].” Donatello revels in the chance of sculpturing a life-sized figure. He makes the masses and lines of the body tell. The ideal aimed at is the ideal of the Greek sculptor, who felt that his true medium of expression was the human form. Donatello has found the essentials common to all great sculpture—the basis upon which the greatness of Greek art depends. He has rediscovered the a b c of the language of marble and bronze which every sculptor must realize, whatever differences of thought and emotion he seeks to express.
DONATELLO
SAINT GEORGE