Donatello graces London’s V&A

Between 1404-07, the young Donatello worked as an assistant in the workshop of Lorenzo Ghiberti, an important sculptor and goldsmith in Florence. This is where he practised working with malleable materials like wax and clay, making 3D sketches for sculptures in different materials, including terracotta (which means 'cooked earth').

Other contemporaries included Brunelleschi, and Michelozzi, but such was the quality of Donatello's work, he is now lauded on a similar level to masters such as Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli, who both appeared after him, just as art was developing away from the Church's control.

Carving an air of vitality

Donatello's sculptures have an air of vitality to them. He was a talented marble carver, producing works for Florence Cathedral in his 20s, including the marble 'David' with its details such as the knotted cloak.

The V&A curators say detailing like this "demonstrates the young sculptor's prodigious carving ability". Indeed, his statue of David rises above the exhibition, as if it is ready to pounce, or as if it is dancing alone. To ignore it would seem bizarre.

David is standing upon Goliath's severed head, in what seems to be a soft stylistic twist on the bloody biblical tale. His neck is long and tilted, his features delicate, his body stretched, wired, arrogant, so much so that you feel small standing beside him, just another Goliath waiting to be killed.

Donatello played and experimented with the techniques of goldsmithing, bronze casting, and stone carving to create his forms, and used marble, porcelain, and wood like nobody had before him.

The gentle reliefs he carved on the surfaces of his sculptures gave his subjects an otherworldly feel, but also a delicate vitality. So lifelike are his depictions that you cannot but feel their presence, as if those busts could come alive at any moment.  

A plethora of work

His art adorned churches and mansions in Italy and he built a professional workshop, hiring the best artists of the time to be his assistants. In later years, it has become difficult to distinguish between his works and those of his assistants, who would imitate their master. Some of these may feature in the V&A exhibit.

Some stunning Donatello works are on display, many already in the V&A's collection. Among his more inventive techniques in marble is rilievo schiacciato ('squashed relief'), very shallow relief that conveys a sense of depth by barely grazing the surface with lines that appear to be drawn in the marble.

The finest surviving example of this is 'The Ascension with Christ' giving the keys to St Peter, now in the V&A collection. "The relief's realistic sense of space is enhanced through the use of linear perspective (a system of creating an illusion of depth on a flat surface) which was a novel introduction to sculpture at the time," says the V&A.

Donatello's most famous bronze is probably the David, dressed only in hat and boots, which was probably commissioned by the Medici family. There is also the playful sculpture of Attis-Amorino, where the texturing on the boy's belt stands in stark contrast to the smoothness of the boy's skin.

Although there may be question marks over whether some of the 130 exhibit pieces are Donatello's (or those of his assistants), art history dictates that until proven otherwise, they be attributed to Donatello. One suspects that most sculptors who followed Donatello would have been influenced by him to some degree.

As such, a comprehensive exhibition of Donatello's works and legacy would likely include his influence on the great sculptors that followed. And famous though they may have been, Donatello lays justified claim to be the greatest of them all.