Saint George
From Or San Michele, Florence
The Influence of the Platonists
This brings us to the great problem of fifteenth-century Italian sculpture—its relationship to the art of Greece or Rome. Donatello is frequently cited as the pioneer of the reviving interest in classical sculpture. Following Vasari, the text-books tell of his visit to Rome with Brunelleschi in 1403. They dwell upon the statement that Donatello spent much time in arranging the collection of ancient sculpture in the Medici gardens. Recent investigation, however, shows conclusively that Donatello’s first visit to Rome was made in 1433. In any case, an honest critic must admit that little evidence of direct Greek and Roman influence can be observed in his works. Comparing the “Saint Mark” with such a Hellenic statue as the “Phocion” in the Vatican or the “Sophocles” in the Lateran, what strikes us most strongly is the entire difference in the spirit animating the later work.
And this is equally true of the “Saint George” of Or San Michele, or, to use a clearer example, the nude bronze “David,” now in the Bargello at Florence. Technically, Donatello’s “David” can be compared with any nude male figure, let us say the beautiful bronze “Narcissus” found at Pompeii, and now in the Naples Museum. It is sculptured “in the round.” It is complete in itself. It proves that at last the Italian sculptor is on the high road for complete success. But in sentiment it is utterly un-Hellenic. It possesses none of those external resemblances to Greek statuary which we detect in the sculpture of Canova or Thorvaldsen, for instance.
Truth to tell, the effort to trace evidences of a direct traffic between one great art and another is based upon a total misapprehension. No great artist can “lift” any considerable idea from a work produced in an entirely different mental and emotional atmosphere. What really happened was that a wave of enthusiasm for Hellenic art and literature broke over Italy. The sculptors shared in the humanizing effects of the realization of the true greatness of Greek culture. One cannot point to the treatment of a fold of drapery here, or to the pose of a torso there, and refer it to a Greek original. But in the Italian sculpture of the fifteenth century we can trace a breaking away from ideals which had held sway for centuries. Inspired by the revelation of what liberty of thought and action had done for the Greek, the Italian no longer prostrated himself before the idols of Catholic dogma and scholasticism. Before Donatello’s death the appreciation of classic culture was no longer confined to a few wealthy dilettanti, as had been the case at Pisa a century earlier. Admiration for the productions of the Attic philosophers and artists threatened to become a religious force capable of engulfing Christianity.
The consequences were tremendous. Consider, for instance, the immense difference between the educational methods and ideals. Compare those which operated during the later years of Donatello’s life with those of the earlier age, when education was entirely in the hands of the Roman Church. Take a typical Italian schoolmaster, such as Vittorino of Feltre. Picture his typical Renaissance school, “The House of Joy,” on the shores of the Mantuan Lake. The spot was hallowed by the memory that it had been the birthplace of Virgil. Nature had lavished upon it avenues of planes and acacias. But dominating all was the grand aim of Vittorino, “I want to teach my pupils how to think, not to split hairs.”
DONATELLO
Bargello, Florence
Born at Feltre, Vittorino went as a youth to Padua, one of the leading humanistic centres at the end of the fourteenth century. After a period as Professor of Rhetoric, the ruling Gonzaga invited Vittorino to Mantua to educate his children. This was in 1425, and Vittorino remained there until his death in 1446. His first step was to abolish the luxury which had environed the young Gonzagas. He made “The House of Joy” a seat of plain living and regular study. Youths from other courts flocked to Mantua. At his own expense, Vittorino maintained a number of poor scholars, who lived near the villa and shared in all the privileges of the school. Music and such elementary sciences as geometry and astronomy were taught, in true Hellenic fashion. The Latin classics were studied without the fantastic pedantries of the ecclesiastical era. The grand truth was accepted that every man was possessed of a free but responsible personality. Each one saw that his task in this world was to mould his individuality, and by the exercise of his own free will to prove how far he was above the brutes. The one end of education was to make the boy or girl, not a specialist, but a perfectly developed man or woman. The expert had no place in Italy in those days. Throughout the Renaissance all education aimed at the production of all-round men and women, physically, emotionally, and intellectually sound.
It needs little imagination to see the effect of this general acceptance of Greek ideals of life and conduct upon sculpture. It rendered possible the production of hundreds of statues which would have been meaningless a century earlier. Beyond this we may not go. Every vital art must be largely indebted to the Greek tradition, and Renaissance sculpture was no exception. But, in the end, a great style cannot be transferred. A second-hand style, like a second-hand coat, is apt to be an ill-fit. Taking a few typical fifteenth-century sculptures we do not say “how Greek they are.” On the contrary, it is at once apparent that the difference underlying Italian and Greek sculpture is far more noticeable than any external resemblance.
When once we realize the cause, it is easy to see that it could not be otherwise. In Italy, the relation of the individual to society differed entirely from that in any Greek state. Whereas the individuality of the Greek was constantly sacrificed to the interests of his state, in Italy everything tended to the free emergence of individual personalities. The Italian was in touch with no overpowering political unity. Nothing hampered the attainment of personal ambition or the satisfaction of personal passions. What he desired was not civic or national success, but the foundation of a new age of art and culture in which every type of individuality would have its place. The Italian longed for individual fame, for individual power. This could not but entail the loss of that grand unity of aim which was the great glory of Athenian art. Instead, it led to the growth of a wonderful diversity of character and an extraordinary variety of interests. Whereas the Greek had been content to portray a few supreme types, the artist of the Italian Renaissance wished to show humanity in every aspect. He was not even content with the limits set by the bounds of grace and beauty. The expression of spiritual tension and mental energy could not be indicated without a departure from that harmony of the planes which the Hellenic sculptor regarded as essential. The Italian boldly adopted other means. He depicted with cruel emphasis the play of muscles and tendons which accompanies physical and mental tension. His mission was to present strongly individualized character. To him every human energy was fit for sculptural treatment.
JACOPO DELLA QUERCIA