SANTA CROCE, FLORENCE]

[Sidenote:  The Crucifix and Annunciation.]

Donatello loved to characterise:  in one respect only did he typify.  Where there was most character there was often least beauty.  This is illustrated by two works in Santa Croce, the Christ on the Cross and the Annunciation.  They differ in date, material, and conception, but may be considered together.  As to the exact date of the former many opinions have been expressed.  Vasari places it about 1401, Manetti about 1405, Schmarsow 1410, Cavalucci 1416, Bode 1431, Marcel Reymond 1430-40.  It is quite obvious that the crucifix is the product of rather a timid and uncertain technique, and does not show the verve and decision which Donatello acquired so soon.  It is made of olive wood, and is covered by a shiny brown paint which may conceal a good deal of detailed carving.  The work is sober and decorous, and not marred by any breach of good taste.  It is in no sense remarkable, and has nothing special to connect it with Donatello.  Its notoriety springs from a long and rather inconsequent story, which says that, having made his Christ in rivalry with Brunellesco, who was occupied on a similar work, Donatello was so much saddened at the superiority of the other crucifix that he exclaimed:  “You make the Christ while I can only make a peasant:  a te e conceduto fare i Cristi, ed a me i contadini".[47] Brunellesco’s crucifix,[48] now hidden behind a portentous array of candles, is even less attractive than that in Santa Croce.  Brunellesco was the aristocrat, the builder of haughty palaces for haughty men, and may have really thought his cold and correct idea superior to Donatello’s peasant.  To have thought of taking a contadino for his type (disappointing as it was to Donatello) was in itself a suggestive and far-reaching departure from the earlier treatment of the subject.  In the fourteenth century Christ on the Cross had been treated with more reserve and in a less naturalistic fashion.  The traditional idea disappeared after these two Christs, which are among the earliest of their kind, afterwards produced all over Italy in such numbers.  As time went on the figure of Christ received more emphasis, until it became the vehicle for exhibiting those painful aspects of death from which no divine message of resurrection could be inferred.  The big crucifix ascribed to Michelozzo shows how far exaggeration could be carried.[49] The opened mouth, the piteous expression, the clots of blood falling from the wounds, combine to make a figure which is repellent, and which lost all justification, from the fact that this tortured dying man shows no conviction of divine life to come.  Donatello’s bronze crucifix at Padua, made years afterwards, showed that he never forgot that a dying Christ must retain to the last the impress of power and superhuman origin.  In the conflict of drama and beauty, Donatello allowed drama to gain the upper hand.  But the Annunciation