Donatello’s Humanity
Looking at the sculptor from our moment of environmental crisis
I knew I had to visit the Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance exhibition at London’s V&A Museum from the day it opened. Instead I found myself there on its final day — nothing like leaving things to the last minute. It was well worth the wait, if only for the sheer number of artworks on display, by Donatello himself as well as his contemporaries and successors. The show certainly succeeded in giving a sense of the collaborative workshop culture of sculpture production in fifteenth-century Florence. As the first major UK exhibition¹ dedicated to Donatello, it’s clear that this artist still has appeal for audiences today.
Much of this appeal comes from the humanity of Donatello’s sculptures. As the curators explained in the introductory panel, Donatello “captured the essence of human experience in sculptural form.” This humanity comes out in a variety of ways. His portrait busts, for example, present a “psychological introspection” that reflects the sculptor’s “desire to capture the essence of the human being” he is depicting. When you are face to face with the terracotta Bust of a Man (produced in the 1430s and on loan from the brilliant Bargello museum in Florence), you cannot help but feel the uncanny presence of its sitter — who may have been Niccolò da Uzzano², a Florentine humanist, banker, and politician. Perhaps this has to do with its naturalistic use of colour, or the way in which the man is shown turning his head to the side, as if he’s just heard his name being called. Even when encased in its glass cabinet, there is a particularly palpable presence, of both sitter and sculptor, which I believe is a quality only found in the most accomplished life-size sculptures.
Donatello’s humanity emerges in a very different way in his rilievo schiacciato artworks. The highly skilled technique, which literally means ‘squashed relief’, was only mastered by a few and Donatello himself is credited with its invention. Viewing these works up-close reminded me of looking at Raphael’s drawings³ and seeing pin pricks, fingerprints and smudges — all traces of an artist’s hand working over 500 years ago. Only here, every mark was made in marble, so instead of fingerprints (which obviously aren’t possible) there are faint traces of a chisel fractionally chipping into stone.
The shallowest depth of carving is seen in The Ascension with Christ giving the Keys to St Peter, made between around 1428–30. The shallower the carving, the more I seemed to be drawn to it — almost as if trying to make out shapes through a fog. The word ghostly kept coming to mind, not only as a description for the faint white figures that populate the image, but also in the sense of Donatello’s own presence, barely — yet entirely — there. As you let your gaze wander across the surfaces, you feel with your eyes as you would with your hands. A man emerges from the fog, and a tree seems to grow from his head; dashes and specks form a building, and an angel forms from a cloud. This is a dream space, and what is more universal than dreaming?
The marble relief called the Pazzi Madonna, which Donatello made around 1420–25, shows a mother’s face in profile, with her nose pressed against the face of her son. One of his hands clutches onto the veil underneath his mother’s chin, and her hands — supporting him — are strikingly large in comparison. I hesitate to say that it shows the universal love of a mother for her child, because motherhood comes in many, many forms — but I do believe that it shows the love of any caregiver towards a child. The overlap of the two profiles — one large, one small — gives an impression of some sort of transferral, exchange, passing on… perhaps of wisdom, or care, or trust, between two generations. For me, this marble relief is not simply a visualisation of human tenderness, but the power of this tenderness. It was one of the few works in the exhibition where I suddenly felt alone in front of it, humbled by the connection — or the idea of connection — I seemed to be witnessing.
Since I am an art historian who is particularly interested in ecological ways of looking at Italian Renaissance art⁴, it may seem strange that I am placing so much emphasis on the human aspects of Donatello’s works. What about the animals? The natural world? Whilst there is certainly a lot to be said from this perspective — two highlights are the giant bronze horse’s head (a clear favourite) and the tree that seems to sprout from a figure’s head in The Ascension marble relief — an ecological approach to art does not exclusively need to focus on nonhuman subject-matters.
For centuries, the human capacity to create art has been held up as one of the key distinctions between humans and nonhuman animals (see Ulrich Pfisterer’s very interesting article, Animal Art / Human Art: Imagined Borderlines in the Renaissance⁵ ). An ecological approach to art history not only asks ‘what did humans think about the natural world’ but also ‘what did humans think about being human’. And today, as human obsession with economic growth and corporate wealth threatens to destroy the only liveable planet we have⁶, the question ‘what does it mean to be human’ assumes an urgency that is both political and extremely personal. The question also inherently implicates the natural world, since humans can never be separated from their environment, as much as we may try.
In other words, looking at art — and thinking about how we look at art — helps us to grapple with questions about what it is to be human. Donatello is no exception. Indeed, his ability to “capture the essence of human experience in sculptural form” makes him a particularly powerful artist in this respect. Walking around the exhibition, I felt his art inviting us to think about what connects us as human beings, across centuries and continents. Our ability to dream… our desire to connect, to love and to be loved… our instinct to record, remember, to collect and recollect…
Then came more uncomfortable questions. What are the limitations of seeing Donatello’s art, among other canonical works of Western art traditions, as epitomising humanness given that they are all white European figures? What histories do we erase when we use the word ‘humanity’ as a synonym for compassion and empathy? What assumptions might we make of nonhuman beings, who may not explicitly share ‘human’ desires and dreams, but still have the capacity to thrive?
Of course, as with any artist, Donatello was a product of his time, place, environment, and culture. So, his art needs to be studied, as much as possible, within its original context. But this does not mean we should deny our own emotional responses to his sculptures. I suggest that we can build on these responses to think more deeply about our own society, our own humanity and ‘humanness’, both personally and politically. What might this mean from the context of our current societal and environmental crises? For me, I am inspired by the sense of connection I felt when standing before Donatello’s sculptures — a connection with a human who was living and creating nearly 600 years ago. I want to try and live my life in a way which fosters connection with others, through dialogue, shared experiences, and creativity.
I also want as many people as possible — now and in the future — to be able to experience this precious feeling of human connection through art. When there is societal, ecological and economic breakdown as a result of crop failures, heat waves, floods and unprecedented waves of migration⁷, visiting an art exhibition is not feasible. (As we saw with partial museum closures across Europe last summer⁸.) The power I felt from Donatello’s sculptures made me leave the exhibition feeling more determined to fight for a liveable planet, where future generations are able to enjoy the beauty and connection that we enjoy today. Our children will stand in front of Donatello and feel the power of tenderness.
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* All images are used with permission or presented here for educational purposes under fair usage policy.
References and further reading:
[1] Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance, exhibition homepage at V&A.
[2] Bust of Niccolò da Uzzano by Donatello, at The Met collection online.
[3] Forget His Paintings, Raphael’s Drawings Reveal His True Genius, an exhibition review at ArtNet.
[4] Towards an Ecocritical Art History by Esme Garlake, at Environmental History Now.
[5] Animal Art / Human Art: Imagined Borderlines in the Renaissance by Ulrich Pfisterer [PDF]
[6] Scientists Deliver ‘Final Warning’ on Climate Crisis: Act Now or it’s Too Late by Fiona Harvey, The Guardian online.
[7] There Could be 1.2 Billion Climate Refugees by 2050… by Sean McAllister at the Zurich Insurance website.
[8] As Europe’s Museums Grapple With Historic Heat Waves, Sweltering Employees Demand New ‘Extreme Weather’ Work Plans by Devorah Lauter at ArtNet.
