Donatello (1386-1466)

Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi or otherwise known as Donatello was born in the year 1386 and died in 1466 and lived a total of 80 years. Donatello had began his career in sculpting in the early 1400s working with Lerenzo Ghiberti who showed him the ways of sculpting in bronze and how soon using this knowledge, sculpting would take up his life and his name would be well known through out the Italy area. When Donatello turned 22 years old, during the years 1408-1409 he was asked to make several statues in front of the Florence Cathedral. After Donatello had made these sculptures, people began to realize how talented he was and wanted more from him. His approach in sculpting was different from most other artists during this early time frame; his were more life like instead of the gothic style, which didn’t have nearly as much detail as the way. In 1415 he produced one of the most famous statues, which was of St. George and St. Mark, and it was detailed in human futures especially in the face showing emotion and all the tiniest details that would show on a real life human being. As the years went by he did some other sculptures but his next major one didn’t come until 1420s-1430s. Donatello decided to explore with a new technique that he had discovered and had never used before and what he had done was make the sculptures have a shadow affect casting down on it and to see every detail in the sculpture it had to be directly in the sunlight. Donatello after this had taken a time off from sculpting and didn’t come back to years later but what he was doing was small. His next major project was in the late 1450s were he created a pair of bronze doors for Siena Cathedral and that was one of the last projects he had done. Even though Donatello was famous in sculpting he had never married his whole life was dedicated to art.

Gattamelata

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In the sculpture “Gattamelata” was completed in the year 1450 but first started in 1447. The reason why it is a Renaissance sculpture is because is demonstrates the re-discovery of classical ancient times. In this sculpture it goes into great detail of the horse and the Roman Emperor riding with all the physical traits. This affected the change in society because it caused a controversy about saying that it people that are not rulers that can be good and before all the people that had to be nice and decent you had to be a ruler to have a statue.

The Ascension

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The Ascension with Christ giving the Keys to St Peter was created in the years 1428–30. It expresses it being a Renaissance sculpture being it shows the Christ going to heaven and it has the rebirth showing. When Donatello has created this he had used a new technique were he used a shadowing affect and to see all of the details from this sculpture it has to be in direct sunlight. It affected the changes in society is that it shows Christ was going to heaven and he is giving the keys to the kingdom to St. Peter with angles in the background. This sculpture was a great importance to the church because it expressed all of this.

St. George

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This is a sculpture of St. George and was completed in 1415. It was created for the church of Florentine and was showing the classical beauty and was similar to medieval art but the difference was it was more detailed and especially in the human body. It was a change in society because not only was it a life size sculpture it was different from what any one was used to because it was a different approach from full classical sculpting.