Celebrating Donatello, One of the Fathers of the Early Italian Renaissance

A Berlin exhibition explores Donatello’s artistic, inventive brilliance

“Virgin and Child (Pazzi Madonna),“ circa 1422, by Donatello. Marble; 29 3/8 inches by 28 3/4 inches by 2 1/2 inches. Sculpture Collection (Bode-Museum), State Museum of Berlin. Antje Voigt/Sculpture Collection and Museum for Byzantine Art, State Museum of Berlin

BERLIN—Two Davids greet visitors at the entrance to the exhibition “Donatello: Inventor of the Renaissance” in Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie, and they couldn’t be more different.

Having left Florence, Italy, for the first time, Donatello’s triumphant marble sculpture “David” dons classical drapery and a crown of wine grapes normally seen on Bacchus, the Roman god of wine. He appears pensive. Look closely and you’ll see the sculpture’s anatomy is not quite right: Notice his elongated neck and fingers as per the Gothic style.

“David,” 1408–09 and 1416, by Donatello. Marble; 75 3/8 inches by 16 1/2 inches. Bargello National Museum, Florence, Italy. David von Becker/State Museum of Berlin

The other “David” is the gallery’s plaster cast of Donatello’s best-known bronze masterpiece, the original of which never leaves Florence. In this work, Donatello chose to depict a naked, young shepherd—a new idea—when traditionally the biblical figure had been depicted as a wise king. Compared to Donatello’s older marble piece, David’s anatomy here is much better.

Donatello’s bronze masterpiece “David” never leaves Florence, Italy, but in the “Donatello: Inventor of the Renaissance” exhibition, at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, a plaster cast copy is on display from the city’s Bode-Museum. Paolo Gallo/Shutterstock

Donatello made his bronze “David” some 30 years after his marble sculpture. It would be easy to surmise that the later work showed the artist’s progress and defined his style; it does—and it doesn’t.

We can’t define Donatello’s artistic style, as he was a true Renaissance man darting from one material and technique to another. We can say, however, that he seemed to have mastered everything he touched. He mastered both the subtraction (wood and stone carving) and addition (clay, goldsmithing) methods of sculpture, an exceptional feat.

The Donatello exhibition at Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie (Picture Gallery) is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a wide array of works by one of the founders of one of the greatest eras in art history, the Renaissance. Some 90 sculptures, paintings, and related objects are on display, including works by Donatello’s contemporaries. All exhibition loans are by Donatello, with some of the works—like his marble “David” and the Prato tribune (a raised platform used to address a congregation)—having never before left Italy.

Challenging the Status Quo

Despite the exhibition’s title, Donatello didn’t invent the Renaissance by himself. He was one of many who set the Renaissance style in Florence, notably the painter Masaccio and architect Filippo Brunelleschi. Donatello completed his apprenticeship with goldsmith and sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti, while his master made his famous bronze doors for the Florence Baptistery. Donatello met Brunelleschi when he was a goldsmith, and the two became friends making discoveries and working together on projects.

Donatello’s inventive, artistic brilliance in sculpture did pave the road for the artists who came around a century later, during the High Renaissance (often considered the best period of art history). This is partly why Donatello is lesser-known: Once the Renaissance style reached its epitome in the High Renaissance, the foundational work of early Renaissance artists fell somewhat into the shadows. It’s a little like building a house. The house above ground is seen but the foundation, which is of the utmost importance, remains hidden. Another reason, exhibition curator Neville Rowley added, is because a biography of Donatello was not written until 100 years after his death.

Rowley showed us some key exhibits that demonstrate Donatello’s creative brilliance and ingenuity.

“Virgin and Child (Mantel Madonna),” created around 1415, shows the artist’s early Gothic influences as a style of the time and one that was passed to him by his master, Ghiberti. Notice the idealized figures with almond eyes and elegant, elongated fingers and limbs typical of the Gothic style.

“Virgin and Child (Mantel Madonna),” circa 1415, by Donatello. Terracotta, formerly painted; 35 3/8 inches by 29 1/2 inches by 9 1/2 inches. Sculpture Collection (Bode-Museum), State Museum of Berlin. Antje Voigt/Sculpture Collection and Museum for Byzantine Art, State Museum of Berlin

Donatello evolved his art from the Gothic style to create expressive works. The 16th-century art historian Giorgio Vasari put it well (around a century later) when he wrote in his “Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects”: “What many skilled hands once did for sculpture, Donato [Donatello] has accomplished alone: To the marble he has given life, emotion, movement: What more, can nature give, save speech?”

Donatello looked to the past but never passively copied it; he strived to make something fresh and new, to show his talent, Rowley explained. He points to the museum’s “Pazzi Madonna” as a good example of this.

In the piece, Donatello created a Greek profile that could almost be mistaken as a copy of an ancient relief. But the rest of the piece is naturalistic. 

“Virgin and Child (Pazzi Madonna),“ circa 1422, by Donatello. Marble; 29 3/8 inches by 28 3/4 inches by 2 1/2 inches. Sculpture Collection (Bode-Museum), State Museum of Berlin. Antje Voigt/Sculpture Collection and Museum for Byzantine Art, State Museum of Berlin

We can see and feel not only the earthly mother-child bond but also the divine. The Virgin gazes at her son with apprehension, for she knows that she must let him go to fulfill his sacred mission. See how she sinks her fingers into Christ’s pudgy body as she holds him tight. We could almost be looking at soft flesh rather than hard marble. As with all Donatello’s biblical works, this expressive sculpture first moves our heart and then reminds us of what’s most important: to deepen our faith.

Look at Donatello’s Madonna and Child pieces and it seems no two are the same. Rowley believes Donatello changed the sacred couple’s composition 30 times or more.

Donatello’s “Madonna of the Clouds” on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, combines two different traditions in its composition. Rowley explains that the seated Madonna and child motif, symbolizing the Madonna of humility, comes from 14th-century Siena. Donatello takes this revered motif and, rather than depicting the figures seated on the ground, he raises them up into the clouds among a choir of angels and cherubs. Traditionally, the Madonna ascends to such heavenly heights at the time of her assumption, as seen in the many renditions of the Assumption of the Virgin. Yet for this work Donatello chose to show her in heaven with her son.

“Virgin and Child With Angels (Madonna of the Clouds),” circa 1425–30, by Donatello. Marble; 13 3/8 inches by 12 5/8 inches by 1 1/8 inches. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Lorraine Ferrier/The Epoch Times

The work needs to be appreciated up close and in person, as photographs don’t pick up the tiny nuances. Up close, the angels and cherubs fly among the clouds. It’s almost as if Donatello has lightly danced his chisel over the piece, creating such a paradise. How he created this with a chisel, and without any color, must be one of art’s miracles.

“Dead Christ Tended by Angels,” circa 1435, by Donatello. Marble; 31 3/4 inches by 45 inches by 2 3/8 inches. Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Victoria & Albert Museum, London

For the work, Donatello used “stiacciato,” a technique he invented, whereby extremely low reliefs are made on the marble, Rowley explained. The technique is so difficult that few artists used the technique after him. Many of the exhibition works show this technique, including “Dead Christ Tended by Angels,” and the “Virgin and Child with Four Angels (Hildburgh Madonna).” The latter work shows Donatello’s use of single-point perspective (a mathematical technique that Brunelleschi revived from classical times, where the artist ensures that parallel lines converge on one point on the picture plane to make the work appear three-dimensional), something that he and his friend Brunelleschi introduced to art. 

“Virgin and Child With Four Angels (Hildburgh Madonna),” circa 1420–30, by Donatello. Marble; 16 3/8 inches by 12 3/4 inches by 1 3/8 inches. Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Victoria & Albert Museum, London

New From Old

Rowley explained that, while other artists created works showing how learned they were by referencing certain texts, Donatello created sculptures that had never before been seen. For instance, he was the first to make terracotta standing Madonnas. He had learned to sculpt in clay from his master Ghiberti, who was the first to sculpt in terracotta since antiquity. Making these standing Madonnas meant that patrons who couldn’t afford marble could suddenly own works in plain or painted terracotta.

On display in the exhibition is a recently conserved “Virgin and Child (Mellon Madonna),” from the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Here, the Virgin holds Christ on her hip as if she’s showing him to us.

At the center of the “Donatello: Inventor of the Renaissance” exhibition is the “Virgin and Child (Mellon Madonna),” circa 1422, by Donatello (or after Donatello). Painted and gilded terracotta; 47 1/2 inches by 18 1/2 inches by 13 1/4 inches. Andrew W. Mellon Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington. David von Becker/State Museum of Berlin

Rowley finds the work fascinating, especially how Donatello chose not to create a front-facing composition, as typically seen in most architectural settings at the time. Instead, the artist turned the couple at an angle. The curator’s challenge is how best to publicly display such a piece.

Attributing terracotta works to Donatello rather than his workshop is tricky, as it can be difficult to ascertain whether the piece was cast from another terracotta work made by him, Rowley explained.

Donatello too revived an ancient tradition when he began adding “spiritelli,” or “little spirits” (naked, winged children)—a motif he’d seen on ancient Roman sarcophagi—into his works in the 1420s. One fascinating work resulted from a partnership with another sculptor. Donatello couldn’t afford to do many commissions, so he formed a partnership with the sculptor Michelozzo. Together they accepted many commissions, working simultaneously on several projects in different regions.

Dancing spiritelli from the pulpit of Prato Cathedral, 1434–38, by Donatello and Michelozzo. Marble and mosaic of ceramic tiles glazed and formerly gilded. Museum of the Opera del Duomo–Diocese of Prato, Prato in Tuscany, Italy. David von Becker/State Museum of Berlin

In the city of Prato, Tuscany, the pair worked on a marble tribune. The patrons commissioned them to create a series of reliefs with putti (winged baby boys) holding the city’s coat of arms. Donatello had other ideas. Rowley noted that Donatello somehow convinced the patrons to portray a pagan dance of spiritelli on the Christian monument, which would normally have a set iconography.

Donatello chose what he created and patrons had to accept it. Rowley said that, at that time, it was unusual to work in such a way as “for commissions, everything was codified and cleared by corporations and contracts.”

Surprising Works

Donatello turned his talent to mastering many materials. He cast a golden reliquary bust in bronze of Saint Rossore, a saint revered in Pisa. Viewing this bust of St. Rossore, Rowley said that Donatello’s art was evolving. He was depicting anatomy better and was now showing his subject’s psychology. Rowley feels that Donatello effectively conveyed the saint’s melancholia just before he’s martyred by beheading.

Reliquary bust of Saint Rossore, circa 1422–25, by Donatello. Bronze, gilded, and silvered; 21 5/8 inches by 22 7/8 inches by 16 1/2 inches. The National Museum of Saint Matthew, Pisa, Italy. Lorraine Ferrier/The Epoch Times

The most remarkable Donatello acquisition of the 20th century, the bronze “Virgin and Child (Chellini Madonna)” is in this exhibition. Four angels surround the Madonna in a tondo, a round composition popular in Florence. The work is special on its own, but look at the back: Donatello created the piece so that copies of the work could be cast in glass. That’s no easy feat. At the time, Donatello was working in Padua, which is close to Venice and the beginning of the now-famous Murano glass factory, Rowley explained. The nearby glassmakers must’ve piqued Donatello’s thirst to create in the medium.

“Virgin and Child (Chellini Madonna),” circa 1450–55, by Donatello. Bronze, partly gilded; 11 1/4 inches (diameter) by 1 inch. Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Lorraine Ferrier/The Epoch Times

Remarkably, or perhaps horrifyingly, an elderly English noblewoman had been using the bronze roundel as an ashtray, unaware that it was a masterpiece, before the Victoria and Albert Museum in London acquired the piece in 1976.

Viewing each of Donatello’s different masterpieces in the exhibition is like opening a surprise gift. It’s a delight to see this virtuoso sculptor anew, beyond his Davids, and learn about the ways he constantly strove to create, invent, and enjoy his talent. One wonders what the Renaissance would’ve been like without him.

The “Donatello: Inventor of the Renaissance” exhibition runs until Jan. 8, 2023, at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. To find out more, visit SMB.museum

The Berlin exhibition is curated by Neville Rowley in collaboration with Francesco Caglioti, Laura Cavazzini, and Aldo Galli. The exhibition is a unique partnership between the Staatliche Museum zu Berlin (State Museum of Berlin), the Museo Nazionale del Bargello (Bargello National  Museum) in Florence, the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi (Strozzi Palace Foundation) in Florence, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Each venue will show a slightly different version of the exhibition, with some works and loans differing. The exhibition opened in Florence and will travel to London in February 2023.