The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-15)

E4 EZ EE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, MAY 15 , 2022

ART

BY SEBASTIAN SMEE

IN FLORENCE

E

very textbook introduc-

tion to Renaissance art

emphasizes the central

importance of two sculp-

tures of David, the youth who

killed Goliath and later became

king of the Israelites. Both are in

Florence, where, during the Ren-

aissance, David was established as

a symbol of the city. Both show

David nude. One, by Donatello,

seems to prophesy the other, by

Michelangelo.

Michelangelo’s David is the

more famous of the two. Carved

from marble, his 17-foot-tall figure

is robust, muscular and unequivo-

cally masculine.

Donatello’s earlier, smaller Da-

vid, in bronze, is adolescent, al-

most androgynous. His nudity is

set off by his helmet, fancy boots

and enormous sword. His casual,

almost sashaying pose — as if he

were vamping at the end of a

catwalk — lends the sculpture a

teasing eroticism. The impression

is compounded by the feathered

wing coming off the side of Goli-

ath’s helmet right up David’s inner

thigh.

Donatello (c. 1386-1466) is now

the subject of a retrospective in

Florence, the first since a 1985-

1986 exhibition marking the

600th anniversary of his birth. It’s

refreshing to have him presented

as the main attraction. The exhibi-

tion is spread across two venues,

the Palazzo Strozzi and the nearby

Bargello, bringing together 130

works from 50 collections. The

title — not “Donatello and the

Renaissance” but simply “Dona-

tello, the Renaissance” — is a re-

minder that without Donatello,

the Italian Renaissance is unimag-

inable.

The show demonstrates Dona-

tello’s profound influence on other

artists. And in emphasizing gene-

alogies — sometimes with whole

walls dedicated to different artists

addressing the same subject — it

gets you thinking about what it

means both to achieve precedence

and to claim someone else’s man-

tle.

During the Renaissance, Flo-

rentines were obsessed with ques-

tions of lineage, not only in art but

also in religious and civic life. Posi-

tioning themselves as the rightful

inheritors of republican Rome,

they treated the Greek and Roman

gods as natural precursors to the

divine order laid out in the Bible.

In this same spirit, art historians

are forever casting Donatello in

the role of John the Baptist to

Michelangelo’s Christ. Donatello

is the Precursor — the opening act

to Michelangelo’s thundering apo-

theosis.

But it was Donatello who, more

than any artist, led Italian art out

of the Middle Ages. He replaced

the stylizations of International

Gothic with a new emphasis on

real figures with frank, expressive

faces and body postures that ani-

mate the space around them. His

impact has been likened to that of

an earthquake.

Some scholars have argued that

Donatello’s David alludes to the

winged god Mercury’s victory over

the giant Argus. Regardless, the

youth’s foot resting on Goliath’s

head certainly symbolizes the vic-

tory of liberty and intelligence —

qualities Florentines identified

with their own city — over brute

force and tyranny.

David, like John the Baptist, is

often seen as a forerunner to the

Messiah, so the Bible continues to

resonate in Donatello’s otherwise

pagan-seeming interpretation.

But Donatello’s evocation of

youth, restrained force, grace and

hedonistic beauty all spoke to a

new vision of the sovereign hu-

man figure occupying a central

place in the world.

This, above all, was the Donatel-

lo earthquake. We’re still feeling

the aftershocks.

The show will travel to Berlin

and London. But Florence feels

like the place to see it, if possible.

During Donatello’s life, the city was

one vast workshop, as it vied for

political and cultural supremacy

with Milan. In a frenzy of competi-

tive energy, the city’s guilds lav-

ished attention on its unfinished

cathedral, its neighboring baptis-

tery and the former granary-

turned-church of Orsanmichele.

Donatello began work on the ca-

thedral as a 20-year-old. Over the

next half-century, despite long

stints away from Florence, he

helped to adorn all three buildings.

One well-known origin story

demands retelling. It begins with

Lorenzo Ghiberti (to whom Dona-

tello was briefly apprenticed)

beating out Filippo Brunelleschi

in a competition to decorate the

north doors of the baptistery.

Brunelleschi’s loss prompted him

to leave town. He traveled with

Donatello, 10 years his junior, to

Rome. There the two men fell un-

der the spell of antiquity, which

was lying all around them in the

form of ancient sculptures and

crumbling architecture.

Back in Florence, their excite-

ment caught on quickly. This was

that crucial phase of the Renais-

sance when a craving to imitate

antiquity dovetailed with fresh

ideas about nature and the human

body and a new awareness of time

and space. Brunelleschi, Ghiberti,

Masaccio and Leon Battista Alber-

ti were establishing the rules of

perspective. The idealized nudity

of classical sculptures, the sturdy

realism of Roman portrait heads,

and the proportions and decora-

tions of classical architecture were

all taken up in Florence as a kind

of patrimony. The city’s artists and

its famous patrons — above all the

House of Medici — wanted a new

style to distinguish Florence from

Milan, where the French-

influenced forms of International

Gothic prevailed.

You can see that style emerging

in the show’s opening room, which

presents Donatello’s first sculp-

ture of David. Clothed and carved

from marble, this David is alto-

gether more martial than the later

bronze. The same room includes

two crucifixes in painted wood,

the first by Donatello, the second

by Brunelleschi. Pressed for his

opinion of Donatello’s crucifix,

Brunelleschi remarked that his

protege, instead of carving the

body of Christ (“the most perfect

human form ever created”), had

carved the body of a peasant.

“So you get some wood and try

to make one yourself” was Dona-

tello’s wounded response.

Brunelleschi obliged, and Dona-

tello was suitably impressed.

“Your job is to make Christs,” he

concluded, “and mine is making

peasants.” Donatello exaggerated.

But his “peasant crucifix” antici-

pates some of his late works, in-

cluding sculptures of Mary

Magdalene and Saint John the

Baptist, which are astonishingly

expressive.

The remaining galleries in the

Palazzo Strozzi include marble

statues, wall decorations, bronzes

and terracottas (Donatello revived

both materials, which had fallen

out of favor since antiquity). They

also include his spiritelli , the

winged cherubs, or putti , which he

made into a uniquely dynamic

motif, and many of his famous low

reliefs. The reliefs include the

“Pazzi Madonna,” “The Feast of

Herod” and the “Miracle of the

Mule,” which read more like pic-

tures than sculptures, so thinly do

they protrude from the vertical

plane. They are among his most

refined and moving works.

The later David and the marble

Saint George (Donatello’s two

most famous works) are dramati-

cally installed in the Bargello in

the company of related works by

other artists.

Donatello’s understanding of

the rules of perspective was so deep

and instinctive that while others

were merely implementing them,

he was already playing sophisticat-

ed games with them. He made the

first large-scale sculptures since

antiquity that were independent of

architecture. At the same time, Do-

natello was so sensitive to the

placement of sculptures in archi-

tectural space that he would

change the proportions of his fig-

ures to adjust for the diminishing

effects of distance. In this way, and

in his embrace of non finito , or

“unfinished,” effects, he took care

to include the viewer in the visual

order he had established.

All this points to what the cura-

tor, Francesco Caglioti, calls Dona-

tello’s “unflagging, pervasive

search for everything that could

overturn the usual institutional

habits of art.”

Concluding his biographical

sketch of Donatello, Michelange-

lo’s great champion Giorgio Vasari

seemed to embrace the confusion

around questions of precedence

when he wrote: “Either the spirit

of Donato [Donatello] is at work in

[Michelangelo] Buonarroti or the

spirit of Buonarroti was already at

work in Donato.”

There’s no question that many

of Donatello’s innovations do an-

ticipate Michelangelo. But just as

there’s no need to insist on the

primacy of Florence over Rome,

there’s no need to see Donatello

retrospectively through the lens of

Michelangelo. Half a millennium

on, we can stand to the side of all

such claims to primacy and simply

marvel at it all.

Donatello, the Renaissance

Through July 31 at the Palazzo Strozzi

and Museo Nazionale del Bargello,

Florence. palazzostrozzi.org/en/

archivio/exhibitions/donatello.

CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

Donatello gets the Michelangelo treatment in Florence

ELA BIALKOWSKA/OKNOSTUDIO

ELA BIALKOWSKA/OKNOSTUDIO ELA BIALKOWSKA/OKNOSTUDIO FLORENCE/ELA BIALKOWSKA/OKNOSTUDIO

BRUNO BRUCHI/OPERA DELLA METROPOLITANA

TOP: An installation at the “Donatello, the Renaissance” exhibition at the Palazzo Strozzi and

Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence. The show’s title is a reminder that without

Donatello, the Italian Renaissance is unimaginable. ABOVE: Donatello’s “The Feast of Herod.”

BELOW, LEFT: Works included in “Donatello, the Renaissance,” which runs through July 31.

BELOW, RIGHT: Donatello’s “David Victorious.”