Donatello: One of the Greatest Artist of All Time

Humans are forming the world like an artist forms a piece of clay: into what we think we want it to be, but adjusting to the flaws along the way. Artists are a major key in how society and humanity morphs throughout time. Some of the most influential people in the civilization of humankind are significant early artists like Michelangelo, di Vinci, and Picasso. Art, like the world, is anything created. It is used by artists to record and commemorate our history, and to put ideas into tangible forms. The universal psyche of our species is developed by monumental, and oftentimes biblical, pieces of work.

One of the most talented and critical artists of all time was Donatello. Born in 1386 in Florence, Italy, Donatello made use of natural talent and high-priced education to start making a living off of commissions at a young age. His first great work was the life-sized sculpture, “David.” He sculpted it out of marble in 1408, and later was commissioned to do another copy of it in bronze. Becoming one of his most famous pieces, this piece not only represented the biblical battle of David and Goliath, but also became a symbol for the city of Padua, to them representing their triumph over the enemy, a rival city. “Standing a little over five feet tall, David represents an allegory of civic virtue triumphing over brutality and irrationality.” (“Donatello’s David”) Despite controversy of some of his pieces of work, like a warrior and horse piece made when equestrian works were supposedly only intended for kings or rulers, Donatello spent most of his life on commissions that occasionally became prototypes for another piece, like the copy of “David”.

Donatello left a large footprint in the development of sculpting as a form of art, mainly b...

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...were impossible to miss. His life-sized, three-dimensional, 360-degree works were inspiring, innovative, and pervasive through time. For a man who lived around 700 years ago, Donatello was a pretty impacting figure on the art world.

Donatello has influenced pop culture today by bringing art to life, taking it off of the piece of paper and making it live, large, and so close to being human. This has to have had a butterfly effect leading to skyscrapers, computer graphics that are so realistic it’s hard to tell them apart from reality, and even robots. Now it’s easy to make cartoons, movies, and video games about giant talking turtles who fight for the greater cause. Donatello made growth tangible. Larger-than-life now doesn’t seem so intimidating, and life is now given to inanimate objects. Donatello truly was one of the most influential artists on life as we know it.