Donatello's Sculptural Innovations in Quattrocento Italian Art

The Quattrocento Italy sculptor Donatello created a variety of impactful innovations in sculpture which were able to largely contribute to a body of novel and distinctive styles of Renaissance figural sculpture. As Donatello’s many sculptures signify, he truly helped define a new Renaissance style of sculptural rendition through his advances in depicting emotions, his revolutionary use of freestanding statuary and his careful and intricate portrayals of the human form and the garments around a figure. It is largely because of Donatello’s innovations in sculpture that realistic portrayals of human figures were able to proliferate through Quattrocento Italy in the Renaissance.

One of the key innovations made by Donatello was in the realm of facial expressions and the emotions they evoked in onlookers, the face being a part of the body which Donatello rendered with utmost attention to detail to show the emotions of the figure who was being shown. One of Donatello’s later works, his full-figure sculpture of Mary Magdalene, exemplifies Donatello’s masterful abilities at portraying the vivid emotions of individual characters. Unlike most paintings or sculptures of Mary Magdalene, which tend to show her washing Jesus’ feet, at Jesus’ crucifixion or at Jesus’ deathbed, this portrayal of Mary Magdalene shows her life after Jesus was crucified. According to Jacobus de Voragine, Donatello’s key source for the details of his rendition of Mary Magdalene, Mary Magdalene lived alone as a hermit following the crucifixion of Jesus, letting her hair grow long and spending the rest of her life in prayer. Aside from the fact that Mary Magdalene has been covered entirely with hair and wears no clothes, one feature of Donatello’s sculpture of Mary Magdalene which stands out to onlookers is the detailed facial expression on Mary Magdalene’s face. In the sculpture, Mary Magdalene’s mouth seems to hang down, her chin appears to droop down, and her eyes have a sorrowful gaze. Together with Mary Magdalene’s unruly condition, the careful creation of her facial features by Donatello allows people who view the sculpture to immediately sense her sorrow and sadness, likely caused by the death of Jesus. Donatello has captured a set of facial features which few artists before him ever accomplished with such skill - Mary Magdalene seems to be on the verge of bursting into tears but has not done so yet. Her sorrowful expression and the seeming contraction of her face (which usually occurs before someone begins weeping) seems to indicate that she is experiencing deep sorrow, and make this a sorrowful and mournful sculpture which is able to evoke strong emotions in those who view it. Donatello has harnessed each of the key facial components which can indicate sorrow – the eyes, nose, mouth and chin – all of which usually have slight differences between a people who is sad when compared to a person who is experiencing joy. Donatello’s ability to observe these details between sorrowful and joyful characters and their expressions demonstrates his skill, expertise and innovation in this area. As the sculpture of Mary Magdalene demonstrates, one of Donatello’s most significant innovations in sculpture was his introduction of facial features which were rendered at a level of detail where onlookers could subtly and almost instinctively understand the emotions which the depicted figure was experiencing.

One of Donatello’s most direct and profound departures from the statuary present during the Medieval Ages in Europe was his reintroduction of the Classical style of freestanding statuary which could be observed from different angles and produced an aesthetic, realistic and solid image from wherever it was viewed. Likely Donatello’s most famous work, his sculpture of David, is also famous for its reintroduction of completely freestanding statuary into the Renaissance world. Donatello’s David was displayed in the center of an open courtyard, which allowed it to be viewed easily from all angles. Whilst most medieval statues were displayed within small niches (such that they could mostly only be viewed properly from the front and were often attached to the back of the niche), the placement of a statue in a completely freestanding position indicated an innovation in the world of Renaissance art introduced by Donatello and allowed for these sculptures to feel more realistic for onlookers. Sculptures like Donatello’s David could be seen from all sides much like a real person, and could be placed in virtually any place, such as the sculpture’s original placement in the outdoor courtyard of the Medici palace. Together with the heightened use of a detailed and realistic anatomical portrayal of David, the use of a freestanding statuary made onlookers appreciate the sculpture for its full beauty and made the sculpture easier to “interact” with since its height and placement all seemed to mirror that of an actual person. While medieval sculptures were mainly placed in niches for representational purposes and to convey a specific meaning or moral, Donatello’s David was placed in the courtyard not only to celebrate the Biblical hero but also to appreciate and celebrate human beauty through an admiration of the human figure. Seeing the sculpture in full view brings Donatello’s David to life, and revisits the lost style of freestanding statuary which was prominent in the Classical civilizations of Greece and Rome.

Fitting with the increased appreciation and implementation of science and mathematics into art during the Renaissance, Donatello used the anatomy of the human body to guide his creation of statues and his placement of drapery, such as clothing, around his figures. In medieval times, most figures, both those which were painted and those shown in sculpture, usually revealed little of their anatomy under their garments, with clothes which generally hung around the body and seemed to be unshaped by the human form. With the rise of larger-scale works including nudity and the exploratory passions of many Renaissance painters and sculptors, Donatello was able to embrace the science behind the human body and its workings in his designs and renderings of the human form, both nude and clothed. Donatello’s sculpture of the biblical hero David acts to exemplify his skill in implementing the science of anatomy into his works to create convincing and realistic figures. Through careful study of the human form, Renaissance artists noticed how the body form changed in different poses. More specifically, one key interest of many Renaissance artists were the changes in muscle form as humans changed poses. Although many sculptors tried to implement muscles into their anatomical sculptures of various figures, Donatello’s use of this technique was likely the most realistic to that time during the Renaissance. Instead of showing all of the muscles in the human body, as previous Renaissance artists had tried multiple times, Donatello carefully studied which muscles were visible and which ones were not during various movements. In turn, these observations guided Donatello to be able to render David in his sculpture to appear realistic, since the muscles which show in David’s stance are exactly the muscles which we would expect to see in a real figure in the same stance as that of David. Together, Donatello’s careful creation of David’s body with a strong detail to his anatomy allows for David to seem more realistic to onlookers, and reflects on the close ties and cross-influence between the disciplines of science and art. Donatello’s sculpture of Saint Mark, much like his sculpture of David, demonstrates the sculptor’s skill at realistically and naturally showing the anatomy of the human body and presents an easier contrast to most of the works of medieval painting and sculpture. Since most works of medieval figural depiction involved figures who were clothed, a comparison between clothed figures of the Renaissance and clothed figures of medieval times helps in better visualizing the fundamental differences between the two methods of rendering the human form. In his sculpture of Saint Mark, Donatello employs a garment which is relatively tight around Saint Mark’s body, likely in order to better explore and show the human form. By fitting Saint Mark’s garment more tightly around the body, Saint Mark’s right leg (from the perspective of the viewer) is readily visible due to its purposeful protrusion outwards and its resulting forward stretching of the robe. Similarly, the tighter fit of the garment allows it to move together with Saint Mark, such that his stance in which his hip is bent towards one side is reflected clearly in the movement and folds of the fabric. Although we cannot see the body which is underneath the thick robes of Saint Mark, the careful use of folds and seeming fabric movement allows onlookers to understand the shape of Saint Mark’s body simply from the shape and form of the garment which he wears. The fact that the garment seems to move together with Saint Mark’s body is in stark contrast to the use of garments in medieval painting and sculpture. Although almost all medieval figures were shown with some type of clothing, the clothing flowed over their body in a way such that the figure beneath the robe was almost unnoticeable. Since the garments in medieval art were often shown to be much larger than the figure themselves, it was impossible to tell the stance of a figure from the shape of their garment. Both Donatello’s direct skill at showing the anatomy of the human form and his ability to use garments to signify the stance of the figure wearing the clothing were important innovations which became distinctive features of Renaissance art following their introduction by Donatello.

In conclusion, Donatello’s innovations in sculpture were essential in creating realistic figures with intricate features as well as in reviving the Classical styles of ancient Greece and Rome. Donatello was able to use detailed and powerful portrayals of faces to evoke emotions in onlookers, used freestanding statuary to exemplify a sense of realism which was prominent throughout his art, and used the anatomy of the human body to guide his sculptures and create increasingly real-looking figures. Donatello’s work in sculpture and his many innovations, some of which involved reviving classical techniques and themes in sculpture, acted as a precedent to the flowering of sculpture during the Renaissance.