Donatello: Sculptor [Hardcover]

John Wyndham Pope-Hennessy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1993

This authorative work captures the expressive force and spiritual depth of works by Donatello in 15th-century Italy. Born in 1386, Donatello came to be a towering figure of Italian renaissance art. His influence pervaded both sculpture and painting throughout the 15th-century and beyond. His statues embody the new image of man concieved by the Italian Humanists, the creators of renaissance scholarship and philosophy. In his sculpture, for the first time since classical antiquity and in striking contrast to medieval art, the human body is rendered as a self-activating, functional organism, and the human personality is endowed with a confidence in its own individual worth. Technically as well as philosophically, Donatello was an innovator, pioneering new techniques in both marble and bronze. John Pope-Hennessy is also the author of the highly acclaimed Cellini (1985)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this erudite, lavishly illustrated monograph, Italian Renaissance sculptor Donatello emerges as an innovator who was more radical in his artistic solutions and highly individual religious iconography than is generally assumed. Pope-Hennessy, a leading authority on Italian Renaissance art, surveys the full range of Donatello's accomplishments: his marble David in Florence, the strong humanistic expression of his reliefs and statues, works in gilt bronze and pigmented wood and the low marble relief technique ( stiacciato ) Donatello pioneered, achieving unprecedented effects of animation and expressiveness in almost mystical compositions. The restoration and cleaning of many of Donatello's major works in recent years is reflected in this volume's magnificent color photographs, which radiate the majesty and vividness his sculptures possessed in the 15th century.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Unsurpassed among early Renaissance sculptors, Donatello's formal and expressive genius continues to engage both popular appreciation and scholarly scrutiny. Pope-Hennessy's superbly illustrated articulation of the artist's oeuvre is graced by lucid stylistic analyses, compelling connoisseurship, the perceptive interpretation of the documents, and a commanding grasp of the relevant scholarship. The result is a masterful formulation of Donatello's work and chronology. While the essay is an exemplar of the disappearing genre of sophisticated yet accessible art historical exposition, the author's reluctance to evoke sufficiently the sculpture's dramatic essences will lessen the volume's appeal to general readers. Some scholars, too, may blanch at the minimal consideration of iconographic content and social context. This work nonetheless recommends itself as a grand, if traditional, synthesis by a master of the discipline.
- Robert Cahn, Fashion Inst. of Technology, New York
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Abbeville Pr; First Edition edition (September 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558596453
• ISBN-13: 978-1558596450
• Product Dimensions: 13 x 11.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #410,826 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I want this book, so much, September 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Donatello: Sculptor (Hardcover)

I am a sculpturess, I have a project to do a bas-relief. I like his works a lot. I need this book as soon as possible, I wish. Thank you give us a change to read and find this book.