Expressive Variety of Donatello’s Sculptures

Abstract
 In the wake of Renaissance, not only then art and literature pieces but the resulting diverse expressions well reflected the turning revolts in science, philosophy, and politics, and their association which is tremendously clear even among a single artist’s works, e.g. Donatello’s sculptures, transparently echoing challenges between old traditions and then new reformations vastly influenced by the zeitgeist. Naturalistic theme toward physical human body based on early anatomical studies – rooted in then increasing rebellion against Roman Catholic Church’s theological teachings- enormous enthusiasm for being inspired by ancient Roman and Greek artworks in the wake of Humanism movement, finally Donatello’s indigenous genuineness, talent and introverted personality are among artistic features and versatile expression patterns of his sculptures. Donatello (Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi) was a 15th century early Renaissance Italian sculptor from Florence and the creator of first architecture-independent nude sculptures. During the career life, the forms, techniques and raw material steadily evolved in his artworks. While the primary pieces e.g. “the marble statue of David” and/ or “St. George Tabernacle” prove the Donatello’s special interest in Gothic mannerism, the sculptor explicitly resorted to realism as well as classicism in his later works such “St. Mark” and Donatello’s set of Prophets’ sculptures, particularly Habacuc and/ or Jeremiah which perfectly represented in Equestrian statue of Gattamelata afterward. Like certain primary works such as the prophets’ statues, the sculptor’s last pieces are, however, further emotionally expressive most likely due to the artist’s personality and believes. Alternatively, grounds of the transition of Donatello’s artworks lie in the most profounding renaissance developments of hot debate between theological ideas and secular theories as well as political confrontations among then autocratic powers represented as so called states. While early created “Bronze David” reflects the proudly self-aware zeitgeist which just comes to know its own potentials and looks to grasp a far wider range of choices and options, inquietude and discomfort due to then social values and norms challenges and gradual transformation are echoed by his late sculptures particularly “Penitent Magdalene“. Aside from Donatello’s talent and ingenuity, this particular type of artistic evolution is rooted in apparently contradictory presence of traditional and subversive social elements in renaissance era of which Petrarch provides a good instance where his thoughts and life drawn upon multiple seemingly inconsistent theories from monasticism and hermitage way of life to his poetic approach to romance and his attachment to fame. Present research reviews Renaissance artistic features and has a more detailed look at certain sculptures by Donatello to illuminate probable backgrounds of expressive variety of his works and further focuses on revealing Donatello’s expressive versatility, the methodological diversity among his artworks and shedding light into probable rationales of the observed variety based on the reviews of early Renaissance artistic features and a more detailed look at certain of sculptures by Donatello.The article moves on to addresses the debate over whether or not latest Donatello’s artworks favored the emergence of mannerism movement and conclusively disproves the hypothesis due to distinguished historical contexts of early and late Renaissance styles, and mannerism.