SCULPTURE 



5275 



SCULPTURE 



Revival of Sculpture. During the thirteenth 

 century sculpture experienced a rebirth in Italy, 

 and it was this revival that paved the way for 

 the splendid achievements of the Renaissance. 

 The leader in this movement was Nicola Pisano 

 (1210-1298). His greatest masterpiece was a 

 six-sided marble pulpit in the baptistery at 

 Pisa, which he adorned with bas-reliefs repre- 

 senting scenes from the life of Christ. His son 

 Giovanni also won distinction in the revival of 

 art. He was the founder of the school of 

 Italian Gothic sculpture, which emphasized dra- 

 matic expression rather than classic beauty, the 

 elder Pisano's ideal. This early period also 

 produced Andrea Pisano (1270-1348), carver of 

 the reliefs on Giotto's Campanile at Florence; 

 and Andrea Orcagna (died 1368), whose master- 

 piece was the tabernacle at Or San Michele, 

 probably the most beautiful example of Gothic 

 art in Italy. 



The Renaissance. One of the great masters 

 of the Early Renaissance was Lorenzo Ghiberti 

 (1378-1455), famed for his wonderful bronze 

 doors in the baptistery at Florence. Michel- 

 angelo said of them that they were worthy to 

 be the gates of Paradise. Donatello (1386- 

 1466), Lorenzo's contemporary, was the great- 

 est genius of this era, and his influence domi- 

 nated Italian sculpture until the High Renais- 

 sance, which culminated in Michelangelo. A 

 third great name of the Early Renaissance is 

 that of Luca della Robbia, who worked in terra 

 cotta, marble and bronze. Sculpture through 

 these masters and their followers advanced in 

 naturalness, beauty of form, composition and 

 technique. 



High Renaissance. It is characteristic of 

 Italian sculpture of this period that there was 

 no distinctly national school, but there were 

 many schools, each centered in a special city. 

 Siena, Padua, Venice and Florence were all cen- 

 ters of activity, but it was the Florentine school 

 that produced the crowning figure of this 

 golden age of Italian sculpture. What Shake- 

 speare was to the Elizabethan drama, Michel- 

 angelo (1475-1564) was to the sculpture of his 

 day. In him all previous efforts to interpret 

 passion and feeling were summed up and con- 

 cluded; he was not only supreme as a sculptor, 

 but as a painter and architect, and his influence 

 on modern art cannot be overestimated. His 

 colossal David at Florence, the Captives in the 

 Louvre, the Moses, in Rome (see illustration 

 on page 3963), the statues in the chapel of the 

 Medici at Florence, and the Madonna, in 

 Bruges, are at once monuments to his indi- 



vidual genius and to the greatness of the period. 

 His immediate successors, with one exception, 

 were too much given to the imitation and exag- 

 geration of his manner to achieve 

 anything more than mediocrity; 

 this exception was Ben- 

 venuto Cellini (1500- 

 1571), noted not only 

 for his work in bronze, 

 but for his skill as a 

 goldsmith. Italian 

 sculpture of the seven- 

 teenth century culmi- 

 nated in Lorenzo Ber- 

 nini (1598-1680), noted 

 for his Apollo and 

 Daphne. His death 

 marks the last effort to 

 keep Italian sculpture 

 alive. He was the mas- 

 ter of the "barocco" 

 style, which aimed at 



NEPTUNE 

 With his symbol, the 

 trident. [From a statue 

 elegance and grace at a in the Lateran Muse- 

 sacrifice of purity of um ' Rome - ] 

 ideas. Then the art declined until Canova 

 (1757-1822) brought new life to it. 



Modern Italian Sculpture. In the eighteenth 

 century Italy again became the center of the 

 classical revival which spread thence through- 

 out Europe. The result was the rise of a style 

 based upon a return to Greek ideals. Canova 

 was the first to give expression to this new 

 conception; his Cupid and Psyche and Pauline 

 Borghese are good examples of his art, which 

 was characterized by imagination and grace, 

 but somewhat lacking in the emotional ele- 

 ment. His followers were close imitators. 

 Only that which was strictly after the antique 

 was admitted into the Italian academies, and 

 art degenerated into a cold conventionalism 

 which was dominant until Lorenzo Bartolini 

 (1777-1850) initiated the newer Florentine 

 naturalistic school. The later nineteenth cen- 

 tury Italians, with the exception of Consani, 

 Albani and Fedi, drifted toward a naturalism 

 which tended to become a debased realism. 



France. The rise of an independent school 

 of sculpture in France dates from the early 

 sixteenth century, when the Italian Renaissance 

 began to exert its influence upon all Europe. 

 About this time Tours was the foremost art 

 center in France, and Michel Colombe (1431- 

 1514) was the founder of its school of sculpture. 

 Francis I, the Renaissance king of France, used 

 his influence to build up a school of French 

 sculpture; among the noted sculptors whom he 



