Chapter 11

It is inexplicable that modern criticism should withdraw from Donatello all the free-standing or portrait-busts of boys, while going to the opposite extreme in ascribing to him an enormous number of Madonnas. We know that Donatello was passionately fond of carving children on his reliefs: we also know that only two versions of the Madonna can be really authenticated as his work. Why should Donatello have made no busts of boys when it is not denied that he was responsible for something like one hundred boys in full-length; and how does it come about that scores of Madonnas should be attributed to him when we only have the record of a few? There can be no doubt that Donatello would not have rested content with children in relief or in miniature. The very preparation of his numerous works in this category must have led him to make busts as well, quite apart from his own inclinations. The stylistic method of argument should not be abused: if driven to a strict and logical conclusion it becomes misleading. It ignores the human element in the artist. It pays no attention to his desire to vary the nature of his work or to make experiments. It eliminates the likelihood of forms which differ from the customary type, and it makes no allowance for possibilities or probabilities, least of all for mistakes. It is purely on stylistic grounds that each bust connected with Donatello's name has been withdrawn from the list of his works. A fashion had grown up to ascribe to Donatello all that delightful group of marble busts now scattered over Europe. Numbers were obviously the work of competent but later men: Rossellino, Desiderio, Mino da Fiesole, and so forth. There remain others which are more doubtful, but which in one detail or another are alleged to be un-Donatellesque, and have therefore been fearlessly attributed to other sculptors from whose authenticated work they often dissent. That, however, was immaterial, the primary object being to disinherit Donatello without much thought as to his lawful successor in title. A critical discrimination between these busts was an admitted need; everything of the kind had been conventionally ascribed to Donatello just as Luca della Robbia was held responsible for every bit of glazed terra-cotta. These ascriptions to the most fashionable and lucrative names had become conventional, and had to be destroyed. Invaluable service has been rendered by reducing the number given to Donatello and adding to the number properly ascribed to others. But the process has gone too far. The difficulties are, of course, great, and stylistic data offer the only starting-point; but as these data are readily found by comparison with Donatello's accepted work, it ought to be possible, on the fair and natural assumption that Donatello may well have made such busts, to determine the authenticity of a certain proportion. In any case, it would be less difficult to prove that Donatello did, than that he did not make statues of this description. Among the busts of very young boys which cannot be assigned to Donatello are those belonging to Herr Benda in Vienna, and to M.G. Dreyfus in Paris. Nothing can exceed their softness and delicacy of modelling, and they are among the most winning statuettes in the world. They were frequently copied by Desiderio and his _entourage_. One of the little heads in the Vanchettoni Chapel at Florence is likewise animated by a similar exemplar. There is something girlish about them, a pursuit of prettiness which is no doubt the source of their singular attraction, and which invests them with an irresistible charm. The San Giovannino, also in the Vanchettoni, is a more concrete version of childhood, but is by the same hand as its fellow. These four busts fail to characterise the child's head; not indeed that characterisation was needed to make an enchanting work, but that Donatello's children elsewhere show more of the individual touches of the master and personal notes of the child. The Duke of Westminster possesses a life-sized head of a boy,[155] which is palpably by Donatello, though no document exists to prove it. We have all the essentials of Donatello's modelling; the handling is uncompromising and firm; the child is treated more like a portrait. Indeed, many of these children's busts, even when symbolised by St. John's rough tunic, were avowed portraits--the Martelli San Giovannino, for instance, which from Vasari's time has been ascribed, and probably with justice, to Donatello. This little head enjoys a reputation which it scarcely deserves. The expression is dull, the hair grows so low that scarcely any forehead is visible; the cheeks bulge out, and the mouth is too small. We have, in fact, a lifelike presentment of some boy, perhaps of the Martelli family, showing him at his least prepossessing moment, when the bloom of childhood has passed away, and before the lines have been fined down and merged into the stronger contours of youth. Desiderio would have improved Nature by modifying the boy's features, and we should have had a work comparable to those previously mentioned. But Donatello (and perhaps his patrons) preferred a less idealised version. The Martelli figure, and a most important boy's bust belonging to Frau Hainauer in Berlin, are now usually ascribed to Rossellino. But his St. John in the Bargello, where all the features are softened down, and his authenticated work in San Miniato and elsewhere, make the attribution open to question. The St. John at Faenza is also denied to be by Donatello; one of the critics who is quite certain on the point believes the bust to be made of wood! These problems cannot be settled by spending ten _lire_ on photographs. The bust at Faenza,[156] though a faithful portrait, is one of the most romantic specimens of childhood depicted by Donatello. Admirably modelled, and with a surface like ivory, it gives the intimate characteristics of the model. Nothing has been embellished or suppressed, if we may judge from the absolute sequence and correspondence of all the features. The flat head, the projecting mouth, and the much-curved nose, are sure signs of accurate and painstaking observation; they combine to give it a personal note which adds much to its abstract merits. The St. John in the Louvre[157] is also a portrait, but of an older boy, in whom the first signs of maturity are faintly indicated: lines on the forehead, a stronger neck, and a harder accentuation of nose and mouth. But he is still a boy, though he will soon go forth into the wilderness. By the side of the Faenza Giovannino he would appear rough; beside the Vienna and Dreyfus statuettes he would be harsh and unsympathetic. He has no smiling countenance, no fascinating twinkle of the eye: the type has not been generalised as in Desiderio's work, and it therefore lacks those qualities, the very absence of which makes it most Donatellesque. The fundamental distinction between Donatello and the later masters can be emphasised by comparing this bust with another group of terra-cotta heads, which are analogous, although the boy in them is older. One in the Berlin Gallery[158] has been painted, and no final judgment can be passed until the more recent accretions of oil-colour have been removed. But the whole conception is weakly and vapid. The brown eyes, the nicely rouged cheeks, the mincing look, and the affectation of the pose make a genteel page-boy of him, and all suggest a later imitation--about 1470 perhaps--and contemporary with the somewhat analogous though better rendering in the Louvre.[159] The version belonging to M. Dreyfus differs in certain details from the Berlin bust, and it has been fortunate in escaping careless painting; it has more vigour and virility. One remark may be made about the Faenza, Grosvenor House, Martelli, Hainauer and Louvre busts: they all show a peculiarity in the treatment of the hair. It is bunched together and drawn back from behind the ears, and is gathered on the nape of the neck, down which it seems to curl. This is precisely the treatment observed in the Mandorla relief, the Martelli David, the young Gattamelata, and the Amorino in the Bargello: in a lesser degree it is observable in the Isaac and the Siena Virtues. The point is not one upon which stress could properly be laid, but it is a further point of contact between Donatello's accepted work and some few out of the numerous boys' busts which he must inevitably have made.

[Footnote 155: In Grosvenor House. Bronze; generally known as "The Laughing Boy."]

[Footnote 156: Its proportion is impaired by the basal drapery, which was grafted to the statue at a later date. This bust belonged to Sabba da Castiglione, who was very proud of it. He was born within twenty years of Donatello's death.]

[Footnote 157: No. 383. Marble. Goupil Bequest.]

[Footnote 158: Stucco, No. 38A. _Cf._ also one belonging to Herr Richard von Kaufmann, Berlin.]

[Footnote 159: No. 1274, St. John, Florentine School, a painting.]

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[Sidenote: Niccolò da Uzzano and Polychromacy.]

The bust of Niccolò da Uzzano has gained its widespread popularity from its least genuine feature--namely, the paint with which it is disfigured. The daubs of colour give it a fictitious importance, an actual realism which invests it with the illusion of living flesh and blood. This is all the more unfortunate, as the bust is a remarkable work, and does not gain by being made into a "speaking likeness." Its merits can best be appreciated in a cast, where the form is reproduced without the dubious embellishments of later times. Niccolò was a high-minded patrician, an implacable opponent of the Medici, and a warm friend of higher education: it is also of interest that he should have been an executor of the will of John XXIII. He was born in 1359, and died in 1432. The bust is made of terra-cotta, and shows a man of sixty-five or so, and would therefore be coeval with the later Campanile prophets (but nothing beyond old tradition can be accepted as authority for the nomenclature). The modelling of the head is quite masterly. Niccolò is looking rather to the left; his keen and hawklike countenance, and his piercing eyes, deep set and quivering within pendulous eyelids, give a sense of invincible logic and penetration. The laconic, matter-of-fact mouth, and the resolute jaw add strength and courage to the physiognomy: the nose and its disdainful nostrils are those of the haughty optimate. The head is, however, less fine than the face: a skull of rather common proportions, and a sloping though broad forehead are its marked features. Donatello has given him an ugly ear; Niccolò's ear was, therefore, ugly, and the throat is swollen. The shoulders are covered with a thick piece of drapery, leaving the throat and upper part of the breast bare. Such is the impression conveyed by Niccolò in the cast. In the Bargello the colouring modifies what the form itself was meant to suggest. The smallest error of a paint-brush, the slightest deepening of a pigment, are quite sufficient to make radical alterations in the sentiment of a statue. When applied to plastic art, colour is potent enough to change the essential purpose of the sculptor. The chief reason why the terra-cotta bust of St. John at Berlin looks flippant and fastidious is, that the painter was indiscreet in drawing the eyebrows and lips: owing to his carelessness, they do not coincide with the features indicated by the modeller, and the entire character of the boy is consequently changed. The question of polychromacy in Donatello's sculpture is of great importance, and requires some notice. It is no longer denied that classical statues were frequently coloured. The Parthenon frieze and many celebrated monuments of antiquity were picked out with colour. Others received some kind of polish, _circumlitio_,--like the dark varnish which is on the face of the Coscia effigy. Again, the use of ivory, precious stones, and metal was common. The lips and eyeballs were frequently overlaid by thin slabs of silver.[160] The origin of polychromacy, doubtless, dates back to the most remote ages. It was first needed to conceal imperfections, and to supply what the carver felt his inability to render. It connotes insufficiency in the form. The sculptor, of all people, ought to be able to see colour in the uncoloured stone: he ought to realise its warmth, texture and shades. Nobody has any right to complain that a statue is uncoloured: the substance and quality of the marble is in itself pleasing, but relative truth is all that is required in a portrait-bust. If one wants to know the colour of a man's eye, or the precise tint of his complexion, the painter's art should be invoked, but only where its gradations and subtleties can be fully rendered--on the canvas. Polychromacy is a mixture of two arts: it is one art trying to steal a march upon another art by producing illusion. That is why the pantaloon paints his face, and why the audience laughs: the spirit which tolerates painted statues ends by adorning them with necklaces. Donatello, whose sense of light and shade was acutely developed, least required the adventitious aid of colour. Polychromacy was to a certain extent justified on terra-cotta, to soften the toneless colour of the clay, and on wood it served a purpose in hiding the cracks of a brittle substance. Nowadays it is happily no more than a _refugium peccatorum_. There is, however, no doubt that in Donatello's day it was widely used, and used by Donatello himself. It began in actual need, then became a convention, and long survived: _il n'y a rien de plus respectable qu'un ancien abus_. During the fifteenth century statues were coloured during the highest proficiency of sculpture: buildings were painted,[161] and bronze was habitually gilded. Donatello's Coscia, and his work at Siena and Padua, still show signs of it. The St. Mark was coloured, and the Cantoria was much more brilliant with gold than it is now. The St. Luke, which was removed from Or San Michele,[162] has long been protected from the weather, and still shows traces of a rich brocade decorated with coloured lines. The Christ of Piero Tedesco on the façade of the Cathedral had glass eyes. Roland and Oliver, two wonderful creations on the façade of the Cathedral at Verona, had blue enamel eyes. The Apostles in the Church of San Zeno, in the same city, are exceptionally interesting, being one of the rare cases where the genuine colouring is visible, although it has been much worn. The early colourists used tempera;[163] as this perished, oil paint was substituted, and there are very few painted statues extant on which restoration has never taken place, and consequently where the original colour of the sculptor is intact. With repainting, the original artist disappears: even if the work is cast, the delicate tints of the first colouring must be impaired, and repainting follows. Thus the Niccolò da Uzzano is covered with inferior oil colour, and only in a few details can the primitive tempera be detected. The later addition creates the fictitious interest, and immensely reduces the real importance of this masterly production.

[Footnote 160: _Cf._ Naples Museum, No. 5592.]

[Footnote 161: _Cf._ drawings of façades in Vettorio Ghiberti's Note-book.]

[Footnote 162: Bargello Cortile, No. 3, by Niccolo di Piero.]

[Footnote 163: Borghini, in 1586, gave a curious recipe for colouring marble according to antique rules. Florentine ed. 1730, p. 123.]

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[Sidenote: Portrait-busts.]

It is a singular fact admitting of no ready explanation that portrait-busts, so common in Tuscany, should scarcely have existed in Venice. Florence was their native home. From the time of Donatello every sculptor of note was responsible for one or more, while certain artists made it a regular occupation. Luca della Robbia, however, one of the most consummate sculptors of his day, made no portrait except the effigy of Bishop Federighi. There are one or two small heads in the Bargello, but they scarcely come within the category of studied portraits, while the heads on the bronze doors of the Duomo, though modelled from living people, are small and purely decorative in purpose. Glazed terra-cotta was a material so admirably adapted to showing the refinements of feature and character, as we can see in both Luca's and Andrea's work, that this absence is all the more surprising. At the same time, numerous as portrait-statues were in Tuscany, they do not compare in numbers with those executed in classical times. In the fifteenth century the statue was a work of art, and its actual carving was an integral part of the art: so the replica in sculpture was rare. But under the Roman Empire statues of the same man were erected in scores and hundreds in the same city; their multiplication became a profession in itself, and a large class of artisans must have grown up, eternally copying and recopying portrait-busts and giving them the haunting dulness of mechanical reproductions. The artist himself was more interested in the torso than the head; some artists came to be regarded as specialists in their own lines; Calcosthenes for instance, who made athletes, and Apollodorus, who made philosophers. Donatello made several portrait-busts, and two or three others, such as the head of St. Laurence, and the so-called St. Cecilia in London, which are portraits in all essentials. These two are idealised heads, both made late in life, judging from a certain sketchiness, in no way detracting from their sterling qualities, but indicative of Donatello's fluency as an oldish man. Both are in terra-cotta. The St. Laurence is placed on the top of one of the great chests in the Sacristy of San Lorenzo, too high above the eye-level.[164] It has no connection with the decorative work carried out there by the master, and it is difficult to see how it could have been meant to fit in with the altar. However, the authorship of Donatello is beyond question. St. Laurence is almost a boy, wearing his deacon's vestments. His head is raised up as if he had just heard something and were about to reply. The eager and inquiring look is most happily shown. The sentiment of this bust is quite out of the common; it has an engaging expression which is rare in the sculpture of all ages, differing from what is called animation or vivacity. These also may be found in the St. Laurence, where the exact but indescribable movement of the face as he is about to speak is rendered with immense skill. The bust, though modelled with a free hand, is not carelessly executed; everything is in concord, and the treatment of the clay shows exceptional dexterity, more so, at any rate, than is the case in the St. Cecilia.[165] The name given to this bust is traditional, there being no symbol to connect it with her; but it suggests at least that the work was not meant purely as a portrait. In technique and conception it is not quite equal to the St. Laurence, but it is none the less a work of rare merit, and being Donatello's only clay portrait in this country has a special value to us. The Saint looks downwards, pensive, quiet and modest, the embodiment of tranquillity and calm. There is no movement or effort about her, neither does the work show any effort on the part of the sculptor. It is equable in a very marked degree; the smooth regular features are simple and well defined, and the hair, brushed back from the forehead, has a softness which could scarcely be obtained in marble. The bust known as Louis III. of Gonzaga is interesting in another way: it is bronze and has been left in an unfinished state. Two versions of it exist--one in Berlin, the other in Paris, belonging to Madame André, the latter being perhaps the less ugly of the two. It used to be known as Alfonso of Naples, on the assumption that Donatello must surely have made a bust of that prince. This theory, however, had to be abandoned, and it is now held to be a portrait of the Gonzaga as being a closer resemblance to him than to Alfonso, or Giovanni Tornabuoni. Mantegna's portrait of Gonzaga, though made later, shows a rather different type, less displeasing than the bronze. In the bust we have what is probably the portrait of a coarse and clumsy person; he is petulant in the mouth, weak in the chin, gross in the thick and heavy jaw. The bronze is extremely rough, and shows no signs of the nervous and individual touches which we find in Donatello's terra-cotta. Both the busts are unfinished; in the absence of chasing and hammering they are covered with bubbles and splotches of metal. They have, therefore, not passed through the hands of assistants, except so far as the actual casting of the bronze was concerned. During the process of casting the refinements of a clay model would often be impaired, but this shows no sign of having been made from an original of merit. The man is ugly, it is true; but the broad expanse of his lifeless cheek and the bulbous forehead would in real life have been explained and justified by bone and muscle, which the sculptor would have rendered in his clay study. The ugliness of the man, however, is unrelated to the qualities of the bust. Nobody could make the likeness of an ugly man better than Donatello; and since the faults of this portrait lie more in the modelling than in the sitter, one is driven to conclude that the bust must be entirely the work of an assistant, or else a failure of the master.

[Footnote 164: It used to be over one of the doors, preserved _in una custodia_ which Richa thought ought to have been made of crystal, so precious was the bust.--"Ch. Fiorentine," 1758, v. 39.]

[Footnote 165: Victoria and Albert Museum, No. 7585, 1861.]