Donatello, by Lord Balcarres eBook

David Lindsay, 1st Earl of Crawford
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 224 pages of information about Donatello, by Lord Balcarres.

Donatello, by Lord Balcarres eBook

David Lindsay, 1st Earl of Crawford
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 224 pages of information about Donatello, by Lord Balcarres.
Paduan relief, for instance, is almost a genre representation of a mother and child, domestic and intimate, with nothing but the halos to indicate the higher meaning of the theme.  Having said so much, we come to the other Madonnas which are assigned on various grounds to Donatello:  those known as the Madonnas Pazzi, Orlandini, Siena Cathedral, Pietra Piana; the London oval, the Madonna of the Rose, the Capella Medici group, and the Piot and Courajod Madonnas in the Louvre.  All of these have one or more features which conflict with our ideas of Donatello.  It is impossible to say that any one of them must inevitably be by Donatello himself; none of them carry their own sign-manual of authenticity.  The Pazzi Madonna in Berlin[223] is now generally ascribed to Donatello himself, and certainly no more grandiose version of the subject exists.  The Virgin is holding up the Child close to her beautiful face; she broods over him, and the countenance is full of foreboding.  The solemnity of the large Paduan Madonna is visible here, and it is only made to apply to the Virgin, for the Child is a typical bambino.  So, too, in the relief outside the transept door of Siena Cathedral we find this grim careworn expression and the sense of impending drama:  the massacre of the Innocents is still to come.  This relief, a marble tondo, is in such abnormally perfect condition that one wonders if it may not be a later replica of some original which the atmosphere disintegrated.  Donatello must have provided the design; at any rate, it is difficult to suggest an alternative name.  The four winged cherubs are, however, lifeless and ill-drawn, while the Christ is more like some of the putti on the Aragazzi reliefs than Donatello’s typical boy.  The share of Michelozzo in the reliefs ascribed to Donatello is larger than has been hitherto acknowledged.  The Orlandini Madonna[224] yearns like a tigress as she holds up her child and gazes into its face; here again we have a composition for which Donatello must have been primarily responsible, though the full profile is attributable to inefficient handling of the marble rather than to deliberate intention.  Signor Bardini’s version of this relief has a delicacy lacking in the original; one touch of colour removes a certain awkwardness of the profile.  The Madonna in the Via Pietra Piana at Florence belongs to a different category.  Here again the design is Donatellesque, but the face of the Madonna has a dull and vacant look; not only is it without the powerful modelling of the Pazzi or Siena reliefs, but it shows none of the sentiment for which those two Madonnas are so remarkable.  There are several reproductions in Berlin and London,[225] all differing from the Florentine version in the drapery of the head-dress.  Closely related to this Madonna is another composition which only exists in soft materials.[226] The Virgin, with long wavy hair, looks downwards towards her Child, who is looking outwards to the spectator. 
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Donatello, by Lord Balcarres from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.