Renaissance sculpture: origins, development, major artists

The “father” of Renaissance sculpture is considered to be Donato de’ Bardi, better known as Donatello (Florence, 1386 - 1466): his qualities allow him to play an exceptionally important role in the history of Western art. Donatello infact went far beyond the achievements of the rediscovery of the classical in Gothic sculpture: the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had also experienced classicist impulses, and it is therefore not correct to say that the rediscovery of the classical was the exclusive prerogative of the Renaissance. For Donatello, however, the relationship with ancient statuary was far more profound: his recovery was total in that he took from ancient art techniques, manners, symbols, iconologies and values (such as the ethical sense of republican virtus, that is, “value” understood in the civil sense, which should guide the politics of a state). What is more, for Donatello, ancient statuary constituted a considerable aid in the study ofhuman anatomy, which reached with him levels of realism unknown from ancient art onward (as in David, 1430, Florence, Bargello Museum). Donatello’s Renaissance was thus based more on naturalism than on calculation and rationality (as was the case with Brunelleschi).

Early sculptors interested in Renaissance novelties.

The wave of novelty brought by Donatello did not leave unmoved the sculptors who had been trained in the late Gothic sphere and who wanted to update their language. The first to open up to the new sensibilities was Lorenzo Ghiberti (Florence, c. 1380 - 1455): he took from Filippo Brunelleschi the scientific perspective and from Donatello the technique of stiacciato (whereby depth was given to a relief through a progressive jolting of the figures from the background, depending on their proximity to the observer’s point of view), as well as a certain degree of naturalism, and managed to graft Renaissance novelties onto a substratum made of late Gothic elegance (see, for example, Saint Stephen, 1425-29, Florence, Orsanmichele Museum: the figure is Renaissance, but the elegance and arrangement of the drapery are entirely Gothic). Similar to Ghiberti’s path was that of Nanni di Banco (Florence, c. 1380-c. 1421): he, too, was formed in the late Gothic sphere, but his innovative charge was not, as with Ghiberti, given by his ability to fuse together Gothic elegance and Renaissance novelties, but rather by his ability to reread Donatello’s Renaissance classicism from a perspective of greater solidity and monumentality, as seen in St. Luke (1408-1413, Florence, Museo del Duomo). Not surprisingly, in Nanni di Banco’s naturalism connoted by a strong plasticism, several art historians see a model of reference for Masaccio.

Different, however, was the case of Jacopo della Quercia (Siena, 1371 or 1374 - 1438), considered more of a transitional artist than a Renaissance artist, although even the label of transitional artist fits the Sienese sculptor narrowly. Jacopo, an artist who was proudly Gothic and still deliberately tied to outmoded stylistic features, nevertheless showed great openness to the Renaissance innovations that entered his art, though without following an organic path as was the case with other sculptors of his contemporaries. He was thus a sculptor capable of great passages of naturalism and very modern readings of classical statuary (this is the case with the Fonte Gaia in Siena, for example: see the fragment with the statue of Rea Silvia), but he was also capable of resounding returns to the poetics of the International Gothic, as in some of the reliefs of the portal of San Petronio in Bologna (e.g., the Nativity), made in the 1530s. For this reason, some scholars call Jacopo a proto-Renaissance sculptor: that is, a sculptor still essentially Gothic in spirit, but nevertheless capable of assimilating and opening up to Renaissance novelties.

Alongside these figures emerged, albeit slightly late, that of Luca della Robbia (Florence, c. 1400 Florence, 1482), an artist who looked to the classicism of the early Renaissance artists and reworked it in a plasticist key, thus following the lesson of Nanni di Banco rather than that of Donatello. Luca della Robbia has gone down in art history mainly for having created the technique of glazed terracotta, which was then widely practiced in Tuscany. This was, essentially, terracotta coated with a kind of varnish, called glaze, which, as it dried, imparted exceptional robustness to his works. During the process also, the glazed terracotta was colored, thus allowing for highly refined effects-Luca della Robbia favored blue and white terracottas, as we note from this Madonna and Child (1446-1449, Florence, Spedale degli Innocenti).

The second generation: Mino da Fiesole, Antonio Rossellino, Desiderio da Settignano

The sculptors of the next generation with respect to Donatello and Ghiberti elaborated on the results achieved by the two precursors, but without wishing to replicate the results of extreme realism achieved by some of Donatello ’s achievements and revisiting Ghiberti’s elegance in the key of an intellectual refinement particularly appreciated by the patrons (we are in fact after 1434, the year in which Florence became a de facto seigniory after the seizure of power by Cosimo de’ Medici known as Cosimo il Vecchio). It is the line of classicism that is most successful. The first to apply it was Mino da Fiesole (Poppi, 1429 - Florence, 1484), who practiced much the genre of the bust-portrait: rediscovered for the first time after classical art by Donatello. This was a genre much loved by powerful Renaissance lords who had many of their portraits sculpted in this way, thus echoing ancient statuary (one of these was Astorre Manfredi, lord of Imola who had himself portrayed in a 1455 bust now in Washington, National Gallery of Art). The portrait experienced a remarkable development precisely during the Renaissance thanks in part to the loosening of the grip of religious morality, according to which portraits were symbols of earthly vanity (which is why they were scarce in the Middle Ages characterized by the absolute primacy of the Church in public morality). And furthermore, portraits were seen by the lords as a means of enhancing their prestige and making their effigy immortal.

Alongside the official, solemn and almost austere sculpture of Mino da Fiesole (who moreover introduced the novelty, in the context of the portrait bust, of the subject turning his gaze to the side) came the work of Antonio Rossellino (Settignano, 1427 Florence, 1479), who moved away from the poetics of Mino da Fiesole to seek a more naturalistic and more truthful type of portrait, extremely modern, capable of capturing all the details of the face, including the less beautiful ones (see the hollowed-out face in the portrait of Giovanni Chellini, 1456, London, Victoria and Albert Museum). Still different was the direction taken by the art of Desiderio da Settignano (Settignano, c. 1430 - Florence, 1464): a sculptor with a very short parabola (in fact, he disappeared when he was just over 30 years old), he contrasted the official, solemn and almost austere sculpture of Mino da Fiesole with a poetics made of extreme gentleness and great lyricism, so much so that Desiderio da Settignano can be considered as the most delicate of Renaissance sculptors. It is no coincidence that Desiderio’s favorite subjects were children and young girls(Portrait of Marietta Strozzi, c. 1460, Berlin, Staatliche Museen). All the artists of this generation were also active in making arcosolium funerary monuments (i.e., made in niches surmounted by arches): for example, the funeral monument of Carlo Marsuppini made by Desiderio da Settignano (1453-1455 or 1459, Florence, Santa Croce). Practiced widely in the Gothic period, the arcosolium monument was updated during the Renaissance, according to the innovations of the time (especially in terms of greater classicism). Each artist interpreted this type of work according to his own personal taste, although probably the most interesting results were achieved by Desiderio da Settignano, who managed to infuse his only known monument, that of Carlo Marsuppini, with a lightness never achieved by other sculptors of his contemporaries.

Tension and dynamism: Antonio del Pollaiolo, Verrocchio

A few years later, it was naturalist tendencies that prevailed, and artists began to take an interest in the representation of dynamism and tension in their sculptures. In this area, the two exemplary names are those of Antonio del Pollaiolo (Florence, c. 1431 - 1498) and Verrocchio (Florence, c. 1435 - Venice, 1488). The two artists rivaled each other in Medici Florence, even at the level of workshops (Verrocchio in particular led what was probably, along with that of Perugino, the most active and busy workshop of the time).Antonio del Pollaiolo was essentially the sculptor of the movement, which he extolled in several of his works, including the famous Hercules and Antheus (c. 1475, Florence, Bargello Museum), one of the most famous. Indeed, he was the first artist to pose the problem of the representation of movement in sculpture, succeeding in solving it with compositions that, moreover, denote a remarkable interest in classicism: a classicism that fascinated him to the point of prompting him to make very careful studies of anatomies, which closely resembled those of classical statuary.

Verrocchio was also animated by the same desire as Antonio del Pollaiolo to represent dynamism in sculpture, but this desire of his achieved different results. For as dramatic and tense as Pollaiolo’s art was, so relaxed and pleasing was Verrocchio’s art, which gave his subjects a serenity unknown to his rival(Putto with Dolphin, c. 1470-1475, Florence, Palazzo Vecchio). What’s more, Verrocchio also added a naturalism to his art that went beyond the achievements of Antonio del Pollaiolo, who instead remained anchored in greater classicism. It is also emblematic to point out that both Antonio del Pollaiolo and Verrocchio were also painters as well as sculptors: in fact, that concept of the complete artist, even on an intellectual level, was gaining ground, which found its greatest expression in the greatest genius to come out of Verrocchio’s workshop, namely Leonardo da Vinci.

Renaissance sculpture: origins, development, major artists

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.