File:Donatello (1904) (14758719756).jpg

Identifier: donatello00meye (find matches)
Title: Donatello
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Meyer, Alfred Gotthold Konody, Paul G. (Paul George), 1872-1933
Subjects: Donatello, 1386?-1466
Publisher: Bielefeld and Leipzig : Velhagen & Klasing
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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the central-piece of the fountain which was only finished in 1430by Quercias pupil Minello. All these pieces are therefore only portionsof a complete scheme devised by somebody else, and are worked on aminute scale! The only work independently undertaken by Donatello forSiena, the tomb-stone of Bishop Giovanni Pecci (died 1426) in the Duomo,was also a comparatively unimportant commission. Meyer, Donatello. 4 so And yet these Sienese works fill a special page in the story of Do-natellos developement. For the first time they demanded subtle wax modelsfor little bronze figures from the master of large marble statues, who wasaccustomed to wield the hammer powerfully, and in the Salome relief hefirst proves the whole greatness of his narrative art. It is preceded byonly a single relief, the panel under the St. George (Fig. i), which, in de-corative significance and subject matter, was of entirely different character:a predella for a principal picture, a prelude to a triumphal song! It does
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Fig. 42. Christening-FONT. Siena. S. Giovanni. (To page 49.) not show, how St. George kills the dragon, but only how he fights him —the conqueror after the fight would have been a variation of the statueabove. But at the same time the theme he chose presented the greatestdramatic possibilities, and already on this first occasion Donatello showedthe clever narrators art of stopping short at the moment of greatest tension.The hero gallops towards the dragon; the maiden whom he wishes to setfree, stands by tremblingly. Most directly participating in the action, shealso embodies the feelings of the spectator, like the chorus in the ancientdrama. This advantage was not made use of by Raphael in his St. Georgepicture at St. Petersburg, which is clearly influenced by Donatellos work. 51 This earliest of the masters reliefs is important, however, not onlythrough its narrative art, but at least as much through its art of spacing,

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