Judith, the Magdalen, the St. Justina, and the Madonna at Padua. The
Dovizia is lost, and she was treated as an emblematic personage. These
figures and the statuettes at Siena show that, although not accustomed
to make female statues, Donatello was perfectly competent to do so.
The little Eve, on the back of the Madonna's throne at Padua--the
only nude figure of a woman he ever made, and here only in relief--is
exquisite in sentiment and form. The statue of Judith had an
adventurous life. After the revolution in 1495, the group was removed
from the Medici palace to the Ringhiera of the Palazzo Pubblico, and
the words of warning against tyranny were engraved on its new base:
"_Exemplum salutis publicæ cives posuere_, 1495." Judith was the type
of nationalism, the heroine of a war of independence: and this mark of
the Florentine love of liberty has lasted to our own day. No Medici
dared to obliterate the ominous words. Donatello was not much in
politics: his father had taken too violent a share in the feuds of his
day, and narrowly escaped execution. Nor was Donatello's art coloured
by politics: the Florentines did not give commissions like the Sienese
for allegorical representations of the life and duties of citizenship.
Differing from Michael Angelo, Donatello made no Brutus; he did not
concentrate the political tragedies of his day into a Penseroso and a
group of statues full of grave symbolical protests against the
statecraft of his time; and, except for the accidental loss of
Judith's pedestal, Donatello's art never suffered from the curse of
politics. Michael Angelo was always surrounded by the pitfalls of
intrigue and politics: some of his work was sacrificed in consequence.
The colossal statue of Pope Julio was hurled from its place on the
façade of San Petronio, Maestro Arduino the engineer, having covered
the ground where it was to fall with straw and fascines, in order that
no damage should be done--to the pavement! And the broken statue was
sent away to Ferrara, where it was converted into a big cannon, which
they felicitously christened Juliana![177]
[Footnote 177: Gotti, "Vita," i. 66.]
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Alinari_
ST. MARY MAGDALEN
BAPTISTERY, FLORENCE]
[Sidenote: The Magdalen and similar Statues.]
We have now to consider a group of rugged statues differing in date
but animated by the same motive, the Magdalen in Florence and three
statues of St. John the Baptist in Siena, Venice, and Berlin. Of
these, the Magdalen in the Baptistery at Florence is the most typical
and the most uncompromising. She stands upright, a mass of tattered
rags, haggard, emaciated, almost toothless. Her matted hair falls down
in thick knots; all feminine softness has gone from the limbs, and
nothing but the drawn muscles remain. It is a thin wasted form,
piteous in expression, painful in all its ascetic excess. The Magdalen
has, of course, been the subject of hostile criticism. It gives a
shock, it inspires horror: it is an outrage on every well-clothed and
prosperous sinner.[178] In point of fact, Donatello's summary method
of carving the wood has given a harshness and asperity to features
which in themselves are not displeasing. In a dimmed light, or looking
with unfocused eyes on the reproduction, it is clear that the
structural lines of the face were once well favoured. But from the
beginning the Magdalen was a work which made a profound impression,
and its popularity is measured by the number of statues of a like
nature. Charles VIII. wanted to buy it in 1498, but the Florentines
thought it priceless and hid it away. Two years later they had the
bronze diadem added by Jacopo Sogliani.[179] Finally, at a period when
this type of sculpture with all its appeal to the traditions of the
Thebaid, was least likely to have been acceptable in art or exemplar,
the statue was placed in a niche above an altar erected on purpose for
its reception, where an inscription testifies to the regard in which
it was then held.[180] This Magdalen is didactic in purpose. Donatello
seems to have given less attention to the modelling, subtle as it is,
than to the concentration of the one absorbing lesson which was to be
conveyed to the spectator. His object was to show repentance, abject
unqualified remorse; purified by suffering, refined by bodily
hardship, and sustained by the "sun of discipline and virtue." There
is no luxury in this Magdalen, but she may have contributed to the
reaction when Pompeo Battoni and the like transformed her into an
opulent personage, dressed in purple, who reclines in some luscious
glade while simpering over a bible. By then art had ceased to know how
penitence could be decently portrayed, and the penitent was not long a
genuine subject of art. The Greeks, of course, had no penitent or
ascetic in their theocracy: even the cynic scarcely found a place in
their art. In Italy the Thebaids of Lorenzetti are among the earliest
versions; the sculpture of the following century brought it still more
home to the public, and then the true mediæval sentiment upon which
this and similar works were founded vanished and has never reappeared.
The date of the Magdalen has provoked a good deal of controversy:
whether it was made immediately before or after the visit to Padua
cannot be determined. But the statue has so many features in common
with the Siena Baptist of 1457 that one can most safely ascribe it to
some date after Donatello's return to Florence. It is certainly more
easy to justify the Magdalen from the pulpits of San Lorenzo than from
anything made before his journey to Northern Italy. One
misapprehension may be removed. It is argued that the Magdalen cannot
be posterior to Padua on the ground that by 1440 Donatello had ceased
to work in any material but soft and ductile clay, which was converted
into bronze by his assistants. The argument is that of one who
probably thinks that the Entombment at Padua is made of terra-cotta,
and who forgets that Donatello executed a number of works in stone for
the Marchese Gonzaga about 1450.[181]
[Footnote 178: Rumour was very severe. "_Elle m'a pour toujours
dégoûte de la pénitence_," sighed Des Brosses. This inimitable person
was the critic who, after visiting the Arena chapel at Padua, observed
that nowadays one would scarcely employ Giotto to paint a
tennis-court.]
[Footnote 179: Richa, III., xxxiii.]
[Footnote 180: The inscription is: "Votis publicis S. Mariæ Magdalenæ
simulacrum ejus insigne Donati opus pristino loco elegantiario
repositum anno 1735."]
[Footnote 181: See p. 199. Moreover, in 1458 Donatello accepted a
commission at Siena for a marble San Bernardino. And the Anonimo
Morelliano mentions four other marble reliefs at Padua.]
[Illustration: _Alinari_
ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST
FRARI CHURCH, VENICE]
The statues of St. John at Siena, Berlin, and Venice[182] are closely
analogous to the Magdalen. St. John is the ascetic prophet who spent
years in seclusion, returning from the desert to preach repentance.
These three figures have one curious feature in common--a flavour of
the Orient. The St. John is some fakir, some Buddhist saint. Asiatic
as the Baptist was, it is seldom that Italian art gave him so Eastern
a type; but the explanation is simply that Donatello evolved his own
idea of what a self-centred and fasting mystic would resemble, and his
conception happens to coincide with the outcome of similar conditions
actually put into practice elsewhere. The Berlin bronze is St. John as
Baptist, the others show him with the scroll as Precursor. He always
wears the camel's-hair tunic, which ends just below the knee; at Siena
it is thick, like some woolly fleece; it conceals and broadens the
frame, thus suggesting a stoutness which is not warranted by the
size of the leg. The modelling of legs and arms in these statues is
noteworthy. They are thin, according to Donatello's idea of his
subject; and though the thinness takes the natural form of slender
circumference, one sees that the limb with its angular modelling and
its flat surfaces has _become_ thin: the thinness is explained by the
character. The feet of the Siena bronze are exceptionally good; the
wrist and forearm of the Venice figure are admirable. The Siena
Baptist is nearly life-sized, and was made in 1457. He is the least
introspective of the three, a mature strong man, and the oldest of the
many Baptists Donatello made. The Berlin figure is the flushed
eccentric, holding up the cup he used in baptizing. The figure is half
the size of life, and was doubtless one of the numerous statuettes
which crowned fonts. It has been suggested that this bronze, which is
defective in several places, was commissioned for the Cathedral of
Orvieto in 1423.[183] But the type would appear more advanced than the
busts on the Mandorla doorway or the Siena work made about this time.
Moreover, the contract specifies a St. John _cum signo crucis et
demonstratione ecce agnus Dei_. A Baptist was made at the same time
for Ancona, and is now lost. On first seeing the St. John in Venice
one's impression is to laugh. But he is not really a wild man of the
woods--he is simply covered with and made grotesque by thick masses of
oil paint. A close examination of the figure shows that in some places
the paint is over a quarter of an inch thick, and the last coating it
has received is glutinous in quality, and has been laid on with such
freedom that the position and shape of certain features are altered.
But if seen close at hand, the statue (which it is understood will
shortly be cleaned) shows distinct merits. The modelling of the
extremities is good, and though it is clear that Donatello was never
quite willing to treat St. John as on a par with the other Saints, we
have a systematic and generic rendering of his idea. In some measure
painting was needed as a preservative for wood statues, otherwise it
is difficult to justify the covering of a fine material by paint which
cannot do justice to itself, while it must hide the refinements of the
carving. Donatello worked but little in wood. Crucifixes were commonly
made of it, but the material was one which could never receive _quella
carnosità_ and _morbidezza_[184] of marble or metal. The Greeks
limited their use of it to garden and woodland themes: the Egyptians
used it but little, because they had so few trees. In Donatello's time
it was popular, and came to be regarded as a distinct art. Thus the
Sienese wood-carvers were forbidden to work in stone,[185] but the
great masters like Donatello did not strictly adhere to the rules, and
did not refrain from invading the art of the woodcarver. There is a
large class of statues derived from the four just described. One of
these, attributed to Donatello, is the St. Jerome at Faenza, also made
of wood.[186] Chocolate-coloured paint has been ladled all over the
body. The beard is faint lavender, and the canvas loin-cloth is blue.
The pose and expression are mannered. It is usual to dismiss it in an
offhanded way as a bad and later work; but the modelling shows signs
of skill, and until the paint is removed it is useless to make
guesses. Two bronze statuettes of the Baptist[187] are distinctly
Donatellesque, and made about 1450, though it is impossible to assign
them with certainty to the master himself. Michelozzo's versions of
St. John at Montepulciano, on the Cathedral altar in Florence, and in
the Annunziata, show the influence of Donatello; but the Baptist is a
milder prophet, and no longer the hermit. In the Scalzi at Florence
there is a Baptist which is typical of many others of the same
character. The Magdalen was less copied than the St. John. The version
nearest Donatello himself is in London, a large grim bust;[188] in the
same collection is a relief of her apotheosis, and the Louvre
possesses a similar work.[189] Neither of the latter is by Donatello
himself, but they recall his influence.[190] The large Magdalen in
Santa Trinità at Florence is a good example of the _bottega_.
[Footnote 182: Siena Cathedral, bronze; Berlin Museum, bronze; Frari
Church, Venice, wood.]
[Footnote 183: 10, ii. 1423. On 29, iv. 1423, Donatello received 5
lbs. 3 oz. of wax for modelling the figure. Luzi, "Duomo di Orvieto,"
1867, p. 406.]
[Footnote 184: Vasari, i. 147.]
[Footnote 185: _Che niuno maestro di legname possa fare di pietra._
Rules of Sculptors of Sienna, 1441, ch. 39. Milanesi, i. 120.]
[Footnote 186: In Museum. From the Capella Manfredi in San Girolamo
degli Osservanza outside the town, suppressed in 1866. _Cf._ two
similar statuettes in terra-cotta, Bargello, Nos. 174 and 175.]
[Footnote 187: Louvre, about 12 inches high, unnumbered. Museo
Archeologico, Venice, No. 8. Frau Hainauer's bronze Baptist, signed by
Francesco di San Gallo, is interesting in this connection.]
[Footnote 188: Victoria and Albert Museum, No. 157, 1894.]
[Footnote 189: _Ibid._ No. 7605, 1861, terra-cotta. Louvre, No. 465,
ditto.]
[Footnote 190: _Cf._ Herr von Beckerath's in Berlin, and the
Verrocchio-school Magdalen in the Berlin Gallery, No. 94.]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The Altar at Padua.]
Donatello was fifty-seven when he left Florence in 1443 to spend ten
eventful years at Padua. There he carried out his masterpieces of
bronze for the Cathedral and the equestrian statue of Gattamelata on
the Piazza opposite Donatello's little house, which to this day is
occupied, appropriately enough, by a carver--Bortolo Slaviero,
_tagliapietra_. It is now established that Donatello was invited to
Padua for the Church and that the Gattamelata was not commissioned
until later.[191] At this time Padua was a centre of humanistic
learning and intellectual activity. There was a hive of antiquarians
and collectors, and, according to its lights, a thriving school of
painters.[192] The Florentine Palla Strozzi was living there in
retirement, and he may have been partly responsible for the invitation
to Donatello. But the indigenous art of Padua was dependent on Venice,
and needed some fertilising element. Squarcione with his 140 pupils
founded his art upon traditional and conventional data: had it not
been for Donatello and the radical changes which resulted from his
sojourn at Padua, a fossilised school would have become firmly rooted,
and would probably have influenced the whole of the Veneto. Mantegna
was still young when Donatello arrived, and though there is no reason
to suppose that he received work from Donatello as Squarcione did, it
is clear that, without this influx of Southern ideas, he would have
had some difficulty in shaking off the conventionalisms of his home.
But though Donatello's immediate influence on Paduan art was decisive
(and its ramifications soon extended to Venice), he was himself
influenced by his fresh surroundings, and his native bent towards
complexity was increased. He assimilated many of the local likes and
dislikes. If Gattamelata had been erected in some Florentine square
there would have been less ornament; if Colleone had been commissioned
for Siena there would have been less _braggadocio_. Leonardo never
recovered his Tuscan frame of mind after his sojourn in Milan.
Donatello himself realised these novelties to the full, and their
results upon his art. While he was making the intricate bas-reliefs,
the selective genius of Luca della Robbia was composing the Florence
Lunettes,[193] monumental in their simplicity. And though Vasari
records the enthusiasm with which Donatello's productions were greeted
in the North, the sculptor recognised the dangers of unqualified
praise, and said he must return home to Florence to receive criticism
and censure, the stimulus to better work and greater glory. But the
_maggiore gloria_ was not to be attained. He was old when he left
Padua, and on his departure he had completed the greatest undertaking
of his career--the High Altar of the Santo, with all its marble
setting and the bronze figures. A crucifix, the Madonna and Child, six
saints, a Pietà, twelve panels of angels, four reliefs of St Anthony's
Miracles, the Symbols of the Evangelists, and a large marble
Entombment. Donatello's altar was unfortunately dismantled in the
seventeenth century, and the statues were dispersed throughout the
Church. The altar was reconstructed a few years ago, and the bronzes
have suffered during their exile, but they are still in good
preservation. The new marble altar is a thoughtful and painstaking
construction; its details are derived from Donatellesque motives, and
the bronzes are fitted in with skill. It cannot, however, be in any
sense a reproduction of the old altar, of which no drawing is
preserved. And the earliest description, which has been carefully
followed as far as circumstances allow, shows that the existing
sculpture is incomplete: at least four marble reliefs have been
lost.[194] One may further remark that the twelve angels in high
relief, now forming the face of the altar frontal, are so designed,
especially as regards their aureoled heads, that one concludes it must
have been Donatello's intention for them to have been looked up to
rather than looked down upon. The present arrangement of the altar is
simple and effective. The frontal itself is composed of children
singing and playing music. In the centre is the Pietà, and on either
side is an Evangelist's symbol flanked by two saints on the level of
the top of the altar. The retable has two miracle reliefs, and between
them a small bronze Christ, which has been put there in error. Above
the retable is the Madonna with two saints on either side: the
crucifix surmounts the whole composition. The back of the altar has
the remaining Miracle reliefs and Evangelist symbols, together with
the Entombment.
[Footnote 191: Michael Angelo Gloria; Donatello Fiorentino e le sue
opere ... a Padova, 1895, from which the dates are all quoted.]
[Footnote 192: See Kristeller's Mantegna, translated by S.A. Strong,
1901, p. 17.]
[Footnote 193: Over the Sacristy doors in the Cathedral.]
[Footnote 194: Anonimo Morelliano (1520-40). Ed. of Bassano, 1800, p.
3. _E da dietro l'altar sotto il scabello il Cristo morto, con le
altre figure a circo, e le due figure da man destra con le altre due
da man sinistra, pur de basso rilevo, ma de marmo, furono de mano de
Donatello._]
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Alinari_
SAINT FRANCIS, THE MADONNA, AND SAINT ANTHONY
SANT' ANTONIO, PADUA]
[Sidenote: The Large Statues.]
Of the seven large free-standing statues, that of the Madonna and
Child worthily occupies the central position. Nobody was more modern
than Donatello, nobody less afraid of innovation. But in this Madonna
he went back to archaic ideas, and we have a conception analogous to
the versions of the two previous centuries:[195] indeed, his idea is
still older, for there is something Byzantine in this liturgical
Madonna, who gazes straight in front of her, and far down the nave of
the Santo--a church with mosque-like domes, like those of the early
Eastern architects. The Child is seated in her lap, as in the
earliest representation of the subject: here, however, the Christ
is a child, with an element of helplessness almost indicated, whereas
the primitive idea had been to show the vigour and often the features
of a biggish boy. Donatello's version is much more pathetic, as the
little Christ raises a tiny hand in benediction. The Virgin herself is
of unequalled solemnity, while her young and gracious face, exquisite
in expression and contour, is full of queenly beauty. But there is
still this atmosphere of mystery, an enigmatic aloofness in spite of
the warm human sentiment. The Sphinx's faces, with all their
traditions of secrecy, contribute their share to the cryptic
environment. Donatello uses them as the supports of the throne on
which the Madonna is seated; behind it are Adam and Eve in relief: in
front she herself shows the New Adam to the multitude, on whom he
confers his blessing. St. Francis of Padua [Transcriber's Note: Should
be "Assisi."] stands on the right of the Madonna, as founder of the
Order, and taking precedence of St. Anthony, to whom the church is
dedicated. He holds the crucifix and the book of rules. He is draped
in the ordinary Franciscan habit, which falls round his feet, giving a
stiffness to the figure as seen in profile, and making him appear
rather short when seen from the front. The workmanship is good, the
hands, with lightly shown stigmata, being excellent; but the lack of
distinction in the figure makes one look more closely at the head,
which is modelled with great power and freedom, showing that Donatello
still possessed the vigour and penetration for which the Campanile
prophets are notable. The head is full of character; not perhaps what
one would expect from the apostle of self-abnegation: but it is
determined, strong in the mouth and broad chin. It was, of course,
only meant to be seen a few feet from the ground, and the lines do
not compare in depth with the Habbakuk or the Zuccone; but there is
none the less an analogy in the manner by which Donatello calls in the
assistance of light and shade to add tone and finish to the modelling.
St. Anthony was a deservedly popular saint in Padua, where he preached
and denounced the local tyrant; and he may be accounted the greatest
man of Portuguese birth. But Donatello does not seem to have found the
subject very inspiring. He has taken his idea from rather an ordinary
friar such as he or we might see any day. It is a good homely face,
neither worldly nor spiritual, and only redeemed from the commonplace
by technical ability. St. Daniel is more interesting; the young deacon
is extremely well posed, the plain and massive features being drawn
with a firm and confident touch; and the deacon's vestments, which
always take an easy and becoming fall, are decorated in a typical way
with winged children arbitrarily introduced, and looking more like the
detail of some bas-relief than a piece of embroidered ornament. St.
Justina wears the coronet as princess, and bears the palm-leaf as
martyr. She has no pronounced characteristic, the face being rather
unemotional; but the gesture of her outstretched hand is not without
an appealing dignity. The hair, like that of the Madonna, is parted in
the centre, and stands off from the forehead, and then falls in rich
tresses about her shoulders. It has not the soft and silken texture of
the Madonna's hair, which is rendered with as great a skill as one
sees in the Virgin of the Annunciation. In both these latter cases
Donatello succeeds in giving to the hair an indescribable suggestion
of something full of elasticity and lustre. But St. Justina's hair at
least grows: so many sculptors of ability failed to indicate that
needful quality. St. Procdocimus and St. Louis are of subordinate
merit, and show the work of assistants in several particulars. The
former was first Bishop of Padua and converted the father of St.
Justina to Christianity. At first sight the statue is pleasing, but on
closer examination the weaknesses, especially in the face, become
marked. There is indecision, not in the pose or general idea, but in
the details which give character to the whole conception. The features
are chiselled by a small _mesquin_ personality, and what might have
been a fine statue if carried out by Donatello has been ruined by his
assistants. The ewer which the Bishop carries is a later addition,
from the design of which one might almost argue that the statue itself
is later than the others.[196] The St. Louis, wearing his episcopal
robes above the Franciscan habit, his mitre decorated with a
fleur-de-lys of royal France, is also hammered all over, giving the
bronze the appearance of being dotted with little pin-holes. The head
is, however, marked by the grave austerity for which the St. Louis in
Santa Croce is so remarkable, and which became the typical rendering
of the saint in fifteenth-century plastic art. However much Donatello
may have allowed a free hand to his assistants in this statue, the
fine qualities of the head are attributable to a strict adherence to
his own sketch. The last of the great bronze figures is the crucifix
above the high altar. It is magnificent, apart from the technical
qualities which rival Donatello's most brilliant achievements. All the
lines droop together in a wonderful _cadenza_; the face is
transfigured by human pain, but all the superhuman power remains.
Donatello combines the literal and symbolical meaning of the Cross;
the Godhead is still there. Donatello did not forget that the
crucified Christ, when represented by the sculptor, had to preserve
all the immortality of the Son of God. His _contadino_ Christ in
Florence has its interest in art; this Christ marks the summit of his
plastic ability; but it shows that, without any appeal to terror or
emotionalism, without, indeed, suppressing the signs of physical pain,
Donatello was able to give an overwhelming portrait of Christ's agony.
The celestial and the terrestrial are unified and fused into one
tremendous concentration of human suffering, tempered by divine power.
[Footnote 195: _Cf._, for instance, the Madonna over the door of the
Pisa Baptistery.]
[Footnote 196: _Cf._ drawings of ewers in Uffizzi by Giacomone da
Faenza, sixteenth century.]
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Alinari_
MIRACLE OF THE SPEAKING BABE
SANT' ANTONIO, PADUA]
[Illustration: _Alinari_
MIRACLE OF THE MISER'S HEART
SANT' ANTONIO, PADUA]
[Illustration: _Alinari_
MIRACLE OF THE MULE
SANT' ANTONIO, PADUA]
[Sidenote: The Bronze Reliefs.]