Lecture 2 - Donatello and his Influence

Memorably summarised in The Penguin Dictionary of Art & Artists, Donatello is announced as ‘not only the greatest Florentine sculptor before Michelangelo; he was the most individual artist of the 15th century’, and who are we to disagree? His early career is intimately bound up with the major sculptural projects which announce the renaissance, including the decoration of the Duomo and the external niches of one the city’s smaller churches, Orsanmichele, where his innovative treatment of St George and his legend was a revolutionary innovation taken up by painters such as Masaccio. With his reputation developing apace, he came within the orbit of one of the city’s great merchant dynasties, the Medici while his reputation spread beyond Tuscany. In middle age he spent several years based in Padua creating an inspired series of works for the Basilica of St Anthony, his style influencing a generation of north Italian artists including Mantegna and Bellini. Throughout his long life (c.1385/6 – 1466) he created a series of sculptures which in terms of their technical mastery, the variety of materials employed and the extraordinary range of emotions captured would only be equalled, but never surpassed, by Michelangelo and Bernini.