Donatello

Donatello carved his statue of St. George for the guild of armorers and swordmakers in Florence.  Like the statue of St. Mark, the statue of St. George was destined for the guild’s niche in the building of Orsanmichele.  Because the guild was of average size, it could only afford a statue of marble, rather than of bronze.

St. George was the patron saint of the armorer’s guild and was known as a military figure, one who was well-known in the Byzantine East, but who was also known by the Crusaders who battled Muslim forces in the Holy Land.  A popular tale involving St. George defeating the dragon came to be known through the collection of stories called the Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea) in the late thirteenth century.

In Donatello’s work, St. George was carved with a confident posture.  He stands tall with his shield in front of him that looks as if could rotate on its small base which touches the ground.  This implies, at the very least, a sense of readiness on the part of the saint to quickly confront enemies coming from different directions.  To enhance the look of the statue, the guild created special special adornments for it, which might have been put on display on special days of the year, such as the Feast of St. George.  These adornments would have included a sword, held in his right hand, a helmet, and a belt.  They would have given the statue a bold appearance of metal on marble, and the sword would have projected forward, out of the niche, creating a very visible statement to all walking down the street in front of Orsanmichele.

Unlike the statue of St. Mark, the statue of St. George does not stand in contrapposto.  Instead, both legs are clearly supporting the saint’s weight, although the front of his left foot is not completely planted on the ground, but instead partially hangs off the front of the base.  The purpose of the stance that Donatello gave to St. George was to suggest stability and immobility; he is not supposed to be interpreted as moving, but instead, as stable and unmoveable.  This is a defensive posture.

The reason for such a stance has been linked to political events surrounding Florence during the years leading up to the statue’s creation.  Although Florence was a free Republic during this time, it faced threats by other cities who were more powerful than itself.  One of these cities was Milan, which had been led in 1402 by Gian Galeazzo Visconti to the doorstep of Florence.  With the city surrounded and Florence on the verge of invasion, disease swept through the Milanese army, forcing it to withdraw.  Around the year 1410, a different threat emerged from the south.  An army from Naples, led by a tyrant, moved north and again Florence was in danger of being invaded.  However, before the threat could turn into disaster for the Florentines, the Neapolitan tyrant was struck by a disease and died.  Thus, Florence was spared again from being the conquest of a more powerful foe.  Donatello’s depiction of St. George seems to reflect the idea of standing tall against an approaching enemy.  It was a spirit that must have been shared by Florentines of the day on account of contemporary events, and Donatello used it as the source for the disposition of his statue.

The spirit of standing strong against one’s enemies also seems to be reflected in the face of St. George.  He turns his neck slightly to his left, his mouth is barely opened, and his pupils show a glance which is up and to his left, rather than directly in front of him.  His expression is one of intense concentration, reflected in his wrinkled brow.  This is a look of courage and resolve; this is a figure who will not back down.  Thus, St. George’s facial expression complements the posture of his body to create a memorable statement not only about this man in particular, but also about the Florentine spirit in general.

The statue of St. Mark was commissioned by the linen guild, one of the poorer guilds in Florence whose patron was St. Mark.  They decided to hire the sculptor Donatello for the commission, who created a larger than life-size work (it is 7’9” tall).  The work itself was placed into a niche that was already in existence in the building called Orsanmichele, and probably because this meant only the front would be visible, the back side of the statue was not completely carved.

The result of Donatello’s work was profound, to say the least, as he revived the use of the contrapposto stance in freestanding sculpture.  Contrapposto had been employed by many ancient Greek and Roman sculptors, dating back to the Classical period of Greek art beginning around 480 B.C.  After the fall of the Roman empire, however, it was largely forgotten by Europeans in the Middle Ages.  When medieval sculptors depicted the human figure in reliefs (and less frequently, in free-standing works), the figures would often times be given stylized body parts and rigid postures.  Donatello starts to change this in large-scale freestanding sculpture by giving St. Mark a much more natural look through the use of contrapposto.  He would have known about this sculptural device through the trip to Rome that he probably took with Brunelleschi early on in his career.  In Rome, the remains of reliefs and freestanding works would most certainly have been more prevalent than in any other part of Italy (or Europe for that matter), giving artists an opportunity to study them first-hand.

In addition to the use of contrapposto, another ingenious aspect of the St. Mark is the way Donatello anticipated the way the statue would be seen from below.  The niche in Orsanmichele in which the work was originally placed was along the street, a bit above eye-level.  Donatello made St. Mark’s head and hands and torso over-sized or elongated a bit so that they compensated for the angle that people viewed this from.  Donatello was thus taking the viewing angles of the statue into account in his approach, and this is something that other artists would pick up on in the Renaissance.

Because the guild for which St. Mark was made was the linen guild, Donatello emphasized the garments on the figure.  Here, the cloth covering his body falls over him like it would fall over an actual body with clothing on it.  This way of modeling a body with garments is quite different from the way it had been done at times during the Middle Ages, when artists would depict a body hidden inside a mass of garments.  Here, we can see how St. Mark’s right leg carries the weight and is made column-like for emphasis, but his left knee and leg are clearly detectable under his robe.  Meanwhile, as his left hand holds the Gospel book, his right hand grasps at his side as if he is receiving divine inspiration to write the Gospel.  He stands atop a pillow, which is typically a symbol of holiness; here, however, it also puts some emphasis on his weight and conveys to us the idea that he is a real person because the physical world around him reacts to his body.

This is the first time in the Renaissance that a statue like this is made where garments echo the body’s form like this.  It signals a break from the International Gothic style that preceded it, and helps to usher in a new era of increasingly natural figures carved and cast in life size or larger.