Donatello

Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi - one of the most outstanding sculptors of the Italian Renaissance, the founder of individualized sculptural portrait. Donatello was of practical principles, sometimes it seems that he purposely found ugly side of nature.

Donatello was born in Florence, or near it between 1382 and 1387, studied at the studio painter and sculptor Bichchi de Lorenzo, using the patronage of wealthy Florentine banker Martelli. To the end of his art education trips for two or three years in Rome, together with the famous architect Brunelleschi. One of his first works - high relief of fine-grained stone, located in the church of Santa Croce, Florence, and representing the Annunciation.

First, his statue Magdalene (about 1434, is located in the Florentine baptismal font). This is a gaunt old woman with long hair. The same line of sight and in the statue of King David, known as Zuccone ( «golovasty») and placed in front of the tower of Giotto, in Florence. The statue is - a portrait of a contemporary, with large Bald head. Flat terrain, representing the head in profile St. Tsetsilii, barely separated from the background belongs to the classic style of Donatello (is now in England). Imitation of ancient art, we find and in a bronze bas-relief Bardzhello museum, in Florence, depicting the triumph of Bacchus, as well as in half-Silena and Bacchante on a flat bronze bowl (in the Kensington Museum in London). Bas-reliefs of Donatello, detainees in the eight medallions, and Cosimo de Medici ordered for internal portico of his palace, where they are today - perhaps, just copies of the antique.

But the best work - those in which it is not carried away by excessive realism and not imitating the works of antiquity, was looking for his ideal in itself. This, for example, can be said of the marble statue of St.. George and the statue of David and the Apostle Mark. The first inch of bronze, marble-second, two in Florence. Less well-bronze statue of Judith, the Loggia del Lanzi, in Florence. Several statues of Donatello to cut down the facade of Florence Cathedral, among the preserved a remarkable statue of John the Evangelist.