Donatello

= Donato di Niccolo di Betto (Donatello) 1386-1466= = =

An Architect, A Sculptor, A Painter: Three Friends Change Art Forever
====Humanists in Florence styled their city a "new Athens." It was a fiercely mercantile state, struggling to remain independent and committed to republican virtues though controlled in practice by the powerful Medici family. No single factor can explain the unrivaled artistic flowering it experienced in the early 1400s, but the contributions of Brunelleschi in architecture, Donatello in sculpture, and Masaccio in painting changed Western art forever. Brunelleschi measured ancient buildings in Rome to understand the harmony of classical proportions and reintroduced such elements of classical architecture as the columned arcade. He applied engineering genius to design the huge dome for the cathedral of Florence and invented the system of one-point perspective (which you'll cover in the next section). **Donatello, who accompanied Brunelleschi to Rome, carved some of the first large-scale, freestanding statues since antiquity.** Like those ancient figures, his were sometimes nude. In Florence's Brancacci chapel, Masaccio painted a series of innovative frescoes that used light, coming strongly and consistently from a single direction, to model figures with shadow and give them robust three-dimensionality. He put into practice Brunelleschi's theories about how to project depth beyond a flat painted surface, employing the lines of painted architecture to create a convincing illusion of space.====

====Donatello's earliest known work is a wooden crucifix (picture below). According to stories, Donatello was eager to show this work to his friend, Filippo Brunelleschi. Click this link to find out what Brunelleschi told Donatello about this work:==== http://yourcontactinflorence.com/donatello-and-brunelleschi-challenge-sculpture/

====Another of Donatello's earlier works, and probably his most famous, is his bronze statue of David (picture below), who stands with one foot on the head of the dead giant Goliath. David was the patron of the city of Florence, and this statue was designed to be prominently displayed in the center. Records indicate it was most likely commissioned by Cosimo d'Medici. This statue, circa 1440s, is famous as the first unsupported standing work of bronze cast during the Renaissance, and the **first freestanding nude male sculpture made since antiquity**. Donatello was also well-known for his relief sculptures. He designed them to be seen from the street level (the viewer is standing in the street, looking up at the building on which these sculptures are placed). The upper body, therefore, was made longer than it would be realistically, so that it looked right from that angle, as seen in his //St. Mark// (picture below).====

==Click here to watch a short video about the recent restoration of Donatello's //David// statue in Florence: [|Donatello's David Restored at the Bargello Museum]==