Donatello . cle low, like that of Duke Cosimo the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, — and the whole will be deprivedof its value. Therein lies the decorative quality of Donatellos art: hisever lauded gift of seeing a work as a complete whole in its right position. The Gattamelata certainly does not present the only possible conceptionof an equestrian monument. Verrocchio has shown with his CoUeoni, whatmay be obtained with more effective composition, and Lionardo with hisdesigns for the Trivulzio and the Sforza monuments, how the statue maybe elevated into the storm-tossed sphere of dram
Donatello . cle low, like that of Duke Cosimo the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, — and the whole will be deprivedof its value. Therein lies the decorative quality of Donatellos art: hisever lauded gift of seeing a work as a complete whole in its right position. The Gattamelata certainly does not present the only possible conceptionof an equestrian monument. Verrocchio has shown with his CoUeoni, whatmay be obtained with more effective composition, and Lionardo with hisdesigns for the Trivulzio and the Sforza monuments, how the statue maybe elevated into the storm-tossed sphere of dramatic art. But Donatellowas the first to take up the problem after a thousand years, and perhapsthe only artist of the renaissance who solved it in the true spirit of theantique. In this equestrian statue he is altogether realist, and yet altogetherclassic: full of quiet grandeur! The same problem occupied him repeatedly afterwards, without how-ever finding another complete solution. First of all in Fig. 103. Bronze Head of a Horse. Naples. Museo Nazionale.(To page no.) no Alphonse I. of Aragon had entered this town on Feb. 26. 1443 amidall the pomp and pageantry of an ancient triumpher, which was not merelyephemeral, as on the occasion of Sigismunds reception in Rome, but isimmortalized by the noble triumphal arch of Castel Nuovo. But the erectionof this arch did not commence until a few months after the entry, and itssculptured decoration was not nearly completed, when Alphonse I. died in1458, — not to speak of the equestrian statue, for which only the prepa-rations were made and which was never executed. Donatello received thecommission for it between 1443 and 1458, but all he ever did was thesketch and part of the working model. Perhaps the political conditions of the Aragonese in Naples pre-vented the continuation of thework. Had it advanced as far asthe casting of the horses we possess this head in themighty bronze at the Museo Na-zionale in Naples (F
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectdonatello13861466
