“The Gates of Paradise”
Baptistery, Florence
Technically—judged from the standpoint of workmanship in bronze—“The Creation Panel” is beyond criticism. Comparing it with a painting by Giotto, or, to take an artist of a later date, by Fra Angelico, we feel, however, that something is lacking. Though the subjects depicted are biblical, Ghiberti’s work lacks the spirituality which an artist working under the influence of Giotto, consciously or unconsciously, infused into his work. Italy in the fifteenth century had realized the fallacies that underlay the narrow creed of the Church and the too rigid philosophy of the Scholastics.
Ghiberti, like many another Italian artist, could not accept the judgment of the extreme ascetics who saw in the beauties of the human form only snares set by the devil to catch the souls of men. Whatever may have been Ghiberti’s personal religious belief, as an artist he knew that such a creed was impossible. He saw that the beauties which the eye could see were his raw material. The mystical artists of the Giottesque school would have cried with Watts, “I paint ideas, not things.” Ghiberti worked upon the principle that an artist holding such a creed only approaches success when he forgets his predilection for ideas in the interest aroused by the beauties of the natural world and particularly by the beauties of the human form.
At the very root of our argument lies the fact that these broader and more human views are traceable to the growing influence of the democracy in the Italian cities. It must never be forgotten that such a work as the “Gates of Paradise” was in every sense a public work. Its general design and its detailed progress were continually supervised by the hard-headed burghers of Florence. When, for instance, Ghiberti was instructed on January 2, 1425, by the consuls of the Guild of Merchants to commence the third pair of gates, he was not free to choose his own subjects. Here is an extract from the letter of Leonardo Bruni d’Arezzo, the Chancellor of the Republic, who actually drew up the general scheme. After detailing the subjects he added:
“It is necessary that he who has to design them should be well instructed in every story, so that he may dispose the characters and scenes to the best effect.... I have no doubt that the work as I have designed it will succeed well, but I should like to be near the artist that I may interpret to him the many meanings of the scenes.”
It was no small task which the good Chancellor set Ghiberti. Imagine the feelings of a twentieth-century sculptor suddenly faced with a demand to give expression to the following subjects in ten panels, within the limits set by a single door.
| I | II |
| Creation of Adam. | Adam, Eve, and children. |
| Creation of Eve. | The two sacrifices. |
| Temptation. | Death of Abel. |
| Expulsion from Eden. | Curse of Cain. |
| III | VII |
| Noah leaving Ark. | Moses on Sinai. |
| Noah’s sacrifice. | |
| Noah’s drunkenness. | |
| IV | VIII |
| Abraham and the Angels. | Joshua marching round Jericho. |
| The sacrifice of Isaac. | The Fall of Jericho. |
| V | IX |
| Isaac. | David and Goliath. |
| Esau hunting. | Defeat of Philistines. |
| The blessing of Jacob. | |
| VI | X |
| Sale of Joseph. | Queen of Sheba at |
| Pharaoh’s dream. | Solomon’s Court. |
| Joseph’s brethren in Egypt. |
Yet Ghiberti’s ingenuity was sufficient not only to make the designs but to overcome the immense technical difficulties incidental to carrying them out in bronze. Truth to tell, the commission should never have been given to a sculptor. In addition to the difficulties connected with his own art, Ghiberti was faced with the necessity of adding architectural and landscape backgrounds to his reliefs. He strove to solve problems of perspective which even the painters of his day had not mastered. Indeed, for the designer of the Baptistery gates, sculptural relief was rather a branch of the graphic arts than a part of the plastic arts, governed by the rules and subject to the limitations of sculpture. Ghiberti’s life’s work landed his art in a blind alley. For further progress it was necessary that sculpture should be once more informed with its own definite spirit. Ghiberti, or rather his patrons, had failed to realize that sculpture as a descriptive medium has its limitations. It cannot hope to rival painting in the multiplicity of subjects which it can depict with success. It must, therefore, confine itself to subjects which it can express clearly and vigorously.
Donatello and the Church of or San Michele
What was denied to Ghiberti was given to his assistant Donatello—the foremost sculptor of the transitional period which preceded Michael Angelo. By his example Donatello re-defined the proper limits and the fittest objects of the art of sculpture. His life’s work was one continued reiteration of the Hellenic lesson that sculpture is the concrete expression of man’s joyful interest in the human form. To the end, his figures never possessed the ideal grace with which Ghiberti endowed a hundred forms in the Baptistery panels. But Donatello had the essential quality of a true sculptor within him. He put aside all desire to rival the painter. He willed to express himself by form and form only. This fact alone invests his work with an importance and interest in the history of pure sculpture which the more graceful productions of Ghiberti cannot claim.
Donato di Betto Bardi, to give Donatello his correct title, was the son of a wool-comber. He had entered Ghiberti’s studio as an assistant in 1405, at the age of nineteen. His experience with Ghiberti gave him the technical skill to carry out an ambition that dated from boyhood. Before Donatello was thirty, the chances of the age gave him a series of unique opportunities of making his dreams realities.
As we have seen, a new class of patrons had arisen in Italy with fresh ambitions and ideals. In Florence, for instance, the mercantile class had gradually ousted the German nobles who had ruled in fief of the Emperor. By 1283 the wealthier guilds had established a form of government delegating all power to members of their own class. Under this Florence became more and more powerful. By 1406 Pisa was captured, and the last stronghold of the feudal party in Tuscany had fallen. During the last years of the fourteenth century Florence had prospered greatly. Trade developed. The manufacture of silk and wool brought a large measure of material prosperity. The pride of the burghers in their city increased correspondingly. The erection of the Baptistery gates must be regarded as only a single instance of a general tendency. All over Italy the case was the same. The appreciation of sculpture was no longer confined to a few score merchants and princes, as had been the case at Pisa. It had spread from the cloister and castle to the market square and the Guildhall.
The result of similar circumstances in the earlier history of sculpture will be remembered. In fifth-century Greece a keen appreciation of sculpture had been developed among a burgher population. Just as the proceeds of the commissions for athletic sculptures provided livelihoods for the budding artists of Greece, so the orders of the Florentine burghers offered at least a competence to a struggling Italian sculptor with a belief in the possibilities of his particular art. What the commission for the Baptistery gates did for Ghiberti, similar commissions did for Jacopo della Quercia, Donatello and the rest.
In dwelling upon the importance of such material considerations as these, we are in no way depreciating the zeal of either the Italian or the Hellenic sculptor, by his old patrons, the Guild of Merchants. It was followed by a long series of similar commissions. The Guild of Moneychangers realizing the credit which attached to its rival, desired Ghiberti to furnish a companion figure, “Saint Matthew,” which was in its place by 1422. Finally, the Guild of Wool Merchants employed Ghiberti to produce a “St. Stephen” for a third niche.
Long before this, other Florentine Guilds had joined in the public-spirited competition. Moreover, other sculptors were discovered. In 1416 Donatello had been commissioned by the Guild of Armourers to model a figure for Or San Michele. The result was the well-known “Saint George.” It was followed by the statue of “Saint Mark,” of which Michael Angelo said “it would have been impossible to reject the Gospel from so straightforward a witness.” The “Saint Mark” is a typical work of Donatello’s first period (1405 to 1425). The whole conception of the Apostle is based upon a foundation of stern realism. Gothic strength rather than Attic grace is aimed at. Comparing it with such a work as Ghiberti’s “Saint Matthew,” we see at once that an immense step forward has been taken. The opportunity is nothing to Ghiberti. His deep knowledge of perspective is valueless, of course. His ingenuity in the elaboration of detail proves a drawback rather than an advantage. He produces a graceful lay figure. So with the “Saint George.” Donatello revels in the chance of sculpturing a life-sized figure. He makes the masses and lines of the body tell. The ideal aimed at is the ideal of the Greek sculptor, who felt that his true medium of expression was the human form. Donatello has found the essentials common to all great sculpture—the basis upon which the greatness of Greek art depends. He has rediscovered the a b c of the language of marble and bronze which every sculptor must realize, whatever differences of thought and emotion he seeks to express.
DONATELLO