Donatellos David
Donatello was one of the most important and influential artists of the fifteenth century. As a master artist, he sculpted some of the most beautiful pieces of the Italian Renaissance. His innovations impacted many artists of his time, and set the standard for centuries of sculptors to follow. Donatello’s style is clearly defined and easily recognized in nearly all of his pieces. An exception is the bronze, David, dated 1425-1430. David strays from the traditional style of Donatello with reference to style, form, and medium. Historians speculate on the reasons for this breakthrough with regards to Donatello’s philosophies and life experiences, questioning his brief return to the classical style, as well as the year of the sculpture’s creation.
As one of the most brilliant and representative figures of the Italian Renaissance, Donatello was able to give form to his intellectual aspirations and achievements. He was gifted in depicting elements of both the antique and the modern sentiment, and able to blend them seamlessly in his work. He had an appreciation of life with robust self-reliance, and respect for the inner workings of the soul. Donatello worked exceptionally with most any medium. He cast sculptures in bronze, clay, and marble with equal genius. His originality in conception, and complete break from tradition offset his work from that of any other artist of his time. His strong sense of independence opened the door for both painters and sculptors in Florence, promoting his vision of freedom from his predecessors’ prescribed rules. The embrace of Donatello’s philosophy by artists of the fifteenth century resulted in a permanent change in Italian art. "So completely Donatellesque did Italian art become that it is impossible to conceive what direction it would have taken without his overwhelming influence, …and that every great Master of our own day consciously or unconsciously based his art upon that of Donatello" (Cruttwell 3). Donatello rapidly matured as an artist and was able to present humanity, in its crudest form of existence, to the world. Beauty and form seemed to have little interest to Donatello, but rather the character and emotion of the subject (Janson 413). Straying from his earlier classical works, Donatello’s breakthrough David exemplifies his ability to cast bronze into a beautiful, yet clea...
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... Virgin Mary, as well as the faces of the mourning angels. All of these similarities place David in 1425-1430, adding to the mystery of Donatello’s brief return to a somewhat classical, and absolutely different, style of sculpture.
Throughout his life, Donatello produced an abundance of beautiful paintings and sculptures, almost all having an impact on the art world. His influence is fairly evident in most pieces of the last five centuries. Donatello was one of the most prolific artists of the Renaissance, who work still amazes modern day historians. His bronze, David, surrounded by controversy with regards to style and origin, has become one of the greatest puzzles of the Italian Renaissance.
Bibliography:
Works Cited
Cruttwell, Maud. Donatello. Freeport: Books for Libraries Press, 1911.
Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1999.
Grassi, Luigi. All the Sculpture of Donatello. New York: HawthornBooks, 1964.
Janson, H.W. History of Art. New York: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1997
Janson, H.W. The Sculpture of Donatello. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963.
In Gaines' A Lesson before Dying, Grant Wiggins, a black male school teacher, struggles with the decision whether he should stay in his hometown or go to another state while his aunt, Tante Lou, and Miss Emma persuades him and gives him the responsibility to teach Miss Emma’s wrongly convicted godson to have pride and dignity before he dies. The wrongly convicted man, Jefferson, lost all sense of pride when he was degraded and called a "hog" as he was sentenced to death and announced guilty for the murder of the three white men at the bar he so happened to be in. Through Grant’s visits to Jefferson’s cell, the two create a bond between each other and an understanding of the simplicity of standing for yourself or others. In Gaines’ novel, Grant, Jefferson, and everyone around them go through injustice, prejudice, and race.
After he went and obtained a college degree, Grant Wiggins goes back to live with his grandmother. Being that he is a very educated person, Grant was elected by his grandmother to try and get Jefferson to realize that he was a man and not an animal like the white people had led him to believe. Throughout the entire novel, Grant is battling this idea in his head because he doesn’t feel that even he knows what it is to be a man. He doesn’t believe that he is the right person to talk to Jefferson. But by the end of the novel, he figures out what it is to be a man.
It was a little bit harder for Jefferson to remember his commitment to his nannan and to the town. He had been charged with a crime he did not commit and didn’t know how to deal with it. They were asking a lot from a man who knew he was going to die soon."Me, Mr. Wiggins. Me. Me to take the cross. Your cross, nannan's cross, my own cross. Me, Mr. Wiggins. This old stumbling nigger. Y'all axe a lot, Mr. Wiggins." [p. 224] It takes a strong man to forget about yourself and do something for someone else when your in the position that Jefferson is in. It took a while; but Jefferson did what had to be done, in the end.
With the different styles of artists’ works planned to be showcased in this exhibition I hope viewers will be able to see what sorts of artworks were being done during the Renaissance that do not consist of works done by Michelangelo, da Vinci, Donatello, or Raphael. With a topic not usually covered when studying about Renaissance artist, I hope viewers will be able to not only learn about the interesting stories of famous Martyrdoms, but also learn about some of the lesser known Renaissance artists and their styles. Paintings of angles and landscapes from the Renaissance may look pretty but with these different and shocking pieces I hope to create an exhibition that will not soon fade away from visitor’s memories after they leave the National Gallery.
The piece of artwork Sierra Nevada by Albert Bierstadt has some similar characteristics to the piece Witch Duck Creek by Joshua Shaw. Both of these pieces were created in the 1800s, Bierstadt's from 1871-1873 and Shaw's in 1835. Also, both pieces are made of oil on canvas and are currently being displayed in the same art museum, the Reynolda House Museum of American Art in Winston-Salem, NC.
The novel A Lesson Before Dying is about a young, college-educated man and a convict, Grant Wiggins and Jefferson. Grant is asked to make a man out of Jefferson who is convicted of killing a white man during a robbery in which he got dragged along to. Grant is asked by Emma Lou to make a man out of Jefferson, so if anything, Jefferson can die with dignity. Something that he was striped of when he was tried and his attorney used the defence that he is a hog. While trying to get through to Jefferson, Grant struggles because he is so far and separated from his own community. He holds resentment toward the white man and wants to get away from his town which he thinks is an on-going vicious cycle of misery. The novel A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines depicts the social and racial injustices faced by African Americans in the South in the late 40...
Jefferson’s self-perception is affected by the racist atmosphere. In chapter One, Jefferson’s defense attorney tries to win the jury by claiming that Jefferson has diminished capacity to reason. He tries to reach the jury’s heart and mind by implying it would be a cruel act to kill a man whose intelligence and moral are no greater than those of a hog. The attorney expresses the ugly belief, held by many Southern whites, that blacks are somewhat beneath whites. Jefferson becomes disturbed by the idea and begins acting like a hog, angrily refusing to talk and going through his food like a hog. Miss Emma realizes the impact the attorney’s words have on Jefferson and makes it her goal to ensure Jefferson dies like a man not like an animal. When Jefferson decides to die with dignity, he shakes off the spiteful stereotypes placed on him by whites. “Gentlemen of the jury, look at this----this----this boy. I almost said a man, but I can’t say man. Oh sure, he has reached the age of twenty-one, when we, civilized men, consider the male species has reached manhood, but would you call this---this---this a man? No, not I”,(Gaines, 7). This quote reveals how even Jefferson’s defense attorney from the start had a stereotype opinion held by many Southern whites, a negative opinion that blacks are inferior to whites. From that point on Grant’s mission in the book is to show Jefferson’s hope, dignity, and self-respect, and to prove to whites and blacks are alike, that i...
A good deal is known about Donatello's life and career, but little is known about his character. Donatello was born in Florence, Italy in 1386 and died in 1466; he was never married and had no children. He was a master of sculpture in bronze and marble and is considered to be one of the greatest Italian Renaissance artists of his time. The first sculpture is of Donatello?s David, 1425-1430. Its material is bronze and stands 5? 2 ¼? and is currently located at Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence. The sculpture is a nude and is contrapposto. The scene being depicted is after the clash with Goliath. Donatello?s statue of David was the first large scale, free-standing nude statue of the Renaissance. The sculpture helps to strike a balance between classicism and the realism by presenting a very real image of a boy in the form of a classical nude figure. Although Donatello was inspir...
... and doomed to failure. Racism has shaken Grant to the very core and rattled his beliefs in teaching, where he could express his power and act for change in the community. However, through helping Jefferson to be strong and express his own power over his self-worth, Grant regains his belief in his role as a teacher and the impact he can have on his community.
At this point Grant realizes that Jefferson really did learn a ‘lesson before dying.’ When he says “It is finally over,” he is not only referring to Jefferson’s life, but also that his cowardly nature is “finally over.” He has once and for all taken a stand for what he believes in. This insures that he, too, has benefited from this entire experience. Jefferson’s life was sacrificed in order for the white people in the community to gain a better understanding of the value of the black members of society.
Imagine trying to live a fulfilling life knowing the exact day and time your life would end. In the novel A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines, Jefferson is sentenced to death, and is supposed to learn how to die a man from Grant Wiggins. However the roles seem to reverse throughout the story as Grant becomes more of a man himself. Through the use of symbolism, character development, and an intricate plot, Gaines shows how the justice system affected blacks in the South.
A Lesson Before Dying has a superb depiction of the theme “you can’t judge a book by its cover”. Grant went to help Jefferson with a notion that Jefferson was sewer trash and he would not learn anything from this situation. In the end Grant was wrong because he learned a lot from his short relationship with Jefferson. Grant had certain feelings for Jefferson he never had for a man before. They became real close friends and talked about a lot of things. I really like how they portrayed this theme throughout the book.
Conflicts are the backbone of any novel, without conflict stories would not be nearly as interesting! Conflicts can be caused by many things, in this novel the main problem is racism. A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines is a novel based off of many internal conflicts between the characters, causing the characters to make different decisions and actions; this is important because the story is circled around racism causing many conflicts.
One of the ways he did this was by crafting a lot of works: “The world remained so full of his works, that it may be affirmed right truly that no craftsmen ever worked more than he did.” (377) Vasari praises Donatello’s various works throughout the biography. The collection of works that Vasari mentions, suggests that Donatello was more than just a sculptor because he produced and sold many designs. This was similar to a baker or merchant in Renaissance Florence that was constantly selling his or her own product to others. Furthermore, Donatello’s many works were studied and praised by future Renaissance artists. One of the most influential and well known is Michelangelo Buonarroti. At the end of the biography, Vasari leaves the reader with an intriguing quote by Don Vincenzo Borghini that Borghini stated in a book where he collected drawings from esteemed artists. Borghini states that “Either the spirit of Donato works in Buonarroto, or that of Buonarotto began by working in Donato.” (378). Donatello also had other students such as Bertoldo who “he left all his work to be completed by” (377). Donatello inspired and had other students work under him and taught them his craft. Therefore, Donatello inspired Michelangelo and other artists that became famous and excellent artists in their own right. This shows that Donatello left a lasting
Michelangelo’s David does not react with the surroundings but it stands alone with the little movements disguised behind it. The sculpture brings out David as a soldier preparing for war and not a person engaged in a battle (Miller, Vandome, & McBrewster, 2010). The hands are larger than normal and the arms are longer than his body. This is meant to illustrate the renaissance period. In contrast, the Bernini’s David has aspects of motion, showing that he was already engaged in the battle with Goliath. The idea of movement is enhanced by the loosely flowing robes. In addition, the sculpture demonstrates that unlike Michelangelo’s David that has longer hands, Bernini’s David has contracted muscles. The Michelangelo’s sculpture was created during Renascence period while the Bernini’s sculpture was done during the Baroque period.