David donatello biography relief

Italian Renaissance sculptor

This article is about the artist. For other references, see Donatello (disambiguation).

Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi (c. 1386 – 13 December 1466), known mononymously as Donatello (;Italian:[donaˈtɛllo]), was an Italian sculptor of the Renaissance period. Born in Florence, he studied classical sculpture and used his knowledge to develop an Early Renaissance style of sculpture. He spent time in other cities, where he worked on commissions and taught others; his periods in Rome, Padua, and Siena introduced to other parts of Italy the techniques he had developed in the course of a long and productive career. His David was the first freestanding nude male sculpture since antiquity; like much of his work it was commissioned by the Medici family.

He worked with stone, bronze, wood, clay, stucco, and wax, and used glass in inventive ways. He had several assistants, with four perhaps being a typical number. Although his best-known works are mostly statues executed in the round, he developed a new, very shallow, type of bas-relief for small works, and a good deal of his output was architectural reliefs for pulpits, altars and tombs, as well as Madonna and Childs for homes.

Broad, overlapping, phases can be seen in his style, beginning with the development of expressiveness and classical monumentality in statues, then developing energy and charm, mostly in smaller works. Early on he veered away from the International Gothic style he learned from Lorenzo Ghiberti, with classically informed pieces, and further on a number of stark, even brutal pieces. The sensuous eroticism of his most famous work, the bronze David, is very rarely seen in other pieces.

Working and personal life

All accounts describe Donatello as amiable and well-liked, but rather poor at the business side of his career. Like (not only) Michelangelo in the next

Donatello di Niccolo di Betto Bardi, better known as simply Donatello, is arguably one of the most influential sculptors from the Italian Renaissance. He was born in 1386 or 1387 in Florence, Italy. The exact date is unknown.

Donatello's father was Niccolo di Betto Bardi. The Bardi family were commercially successful and Niccolo Bardi was a wool carder that had earned a modest place in Florence's bourgeois society. This social rank likely earned Donatello an apprenticeship around 1400 to learn stone-carving with one of the many sculptors who worked nearby during the construction of the Florence's cathedral, the Duomo.

Between approximately 1404-1407 Donatello found employment as a member of Lorenzo Ghiberti's workshop. Ghiberti was well known for his International Gothic style of bronze sculpture and excelled at creating gracefully subtle lines in his work. Donatello's first statue depicting David is one of his earliest known works and in many respects pays homage to Ghiberti's style. Other early works include his marble St. John the Evangelist for the Duomo's facade and a crucifix made from wood for nearby Santa Croce's church.

As Donatello refined his skill as a sculptor he also gained a reputation as being somewhat emotionally volatile. It was reported anecdotally that he had a temper and an abrasive sense of humor. Very little is known about his personal life but stories recorded from his friend Vasari seem to indicate he was agnostic. This may account for his unique take on the religious iconography he was commonly commissioned to create.

Around 1415 Donatello's full range as an artist began to emerge in two marble statues completed in the same year. His statues of St. Mark and St. George show immense confidence and personality in everything from their attire to their facial expression. Both statues were carved from marble and also informed a series of s

Summary of Donatello

Donatello would become known as the most important sculptor to resuscitate classical sculpture from its tomb in antiquity, through an invigorated style that departed from the Gothic period's flat iconography. He broke ground by introducing new aesthetics in line with the time's flourishing move toward Renaissance Humanism - a movement that emphasized a departure from medieval scholasticism and favored deep immersion into the humanities, resulting in art that no longer focused solely on the secular realm of religion but explored man's place in the natural world. Donatello's signature lifelike and highly emotional works would place him as one of the most influential artists in 15 century Italy, and an early forefather to the Italian Renaissance.

Accomplishments

• Donatello's work was highly influenced by the revival of interest in the sciences, mathematics, and architecture that was taking place in Florence. This included the use of one point perspective to create a new kind of bas-relief for architectural works and a precise anatomical correctness for his figures.
• The figure was a central point of mastery for the artist, and he was in fact the first to reintroduce the nude sculpture. With the addition of realistic proportion, emotionality, and expression to his subjects whether they be mythic, historical, or everyday people, he created works that conveyed a genuine reality over the idealized imagery of before.
• Donatello was a prolific master of many mediums including stone, bronze, wood, stucco, clay, and wax. He was the first to illustrate the art of sculpture among the modern artists. His versatility and ingenuity would lay a foundation for many future sculptors looking to discover new possibilities in materiality.

The Life of Donatello

Important Art by Donatello

Progression of Art