Alinari
JEREMIAH
CAMPANILE, FLORENCE
Jeremiah and the Canon of Art.
The Jeremiah, for instance, which is in the niche adjacent to the still more astonishing Zuccone (looking westwards towards the Baptistery), is a portrait study of consummate power. It is the very man who wrote the sin of Judah with a pen of iron, the man who was warned not to be dismayed at the faces of those upon whose folly he poured the vials of anger and scorn; he is emphatically one of those who would scourge the vices of his age. And yet this Jeremiah has his human aspect. The strong jaw and tightly closed lips show a decision which might turn to obstinacy; but the brow overhangs eyes which are full of sympathy, bearing an expression of sorrow and gentleness such as one expects from the man who wept for the miserable estate of Jerusalem—Quomodo sedet sola civitas!
Tradition says that this prophet is a portrait of Francesco Soderini, the opponent of the Medici; while the Zuccone is supposed to be the portrait of Barduccio Cherichini, another anti-Medicean partisan. Probabilities apart, much could be urged against the attributions, which are really on a par with the similar nomenclatures of Manetti and Poggio. The important thing is that they are undoubted portraits, their identity being of secondary interest; the fact that a portrait was made at all is of far greater moment to the history of art. Later on, Savonarola (whose only contribution to art was an unconscious inspiration of the charming woodcuts with which his sermons and homilies were illustrated) protested warmly against the prevailing habit of giving Magdalen and the Baptist the features of living and well-known townsfolk.[16] The practice had, no doubt, led to scandal. But with Donatello it marks an early stage in emancipation from the bondage of conventionalism. Not, indeed, that Donatello was the absolute innovator in this direction, though it is to his efforts that the change became irresistible. Thus in these portrait-prophets we find the proof of revolution. The massive and abiding art of Egypt ignored the personality of its gods and Pharaohs, distinguishing the various persons by dress, ornament, and attribute. They had their canon of measurement, of which the length of the nose was probably the unit.[17] The Greeks, who often took the length of the human foot as unit, were long enslaved by their canon. Convention made them adhere to a traditional face after they had made themselves masters of the human form. The early figures of successful athletes were conventional; but, according to Pliny, when somebody was winner three times the statue was actually modelled from his person, and was called a portrait-figure: "ex membris ipsorum similitudine expressa, quas iconicas vocant!" Not until Lysistratus first thought of reproducing the human image by means of a cast from the face itself, did they get the true portrait in place of their previous efforts to secure generalised beauty.[18] In fact, their canon was so stringent that it would permit an Apollo Belvedere to be presented by foppish, well-groomed adolescence, with plenty of vanity but with little strength, and altogether without the sign-manual of godhead or victory. Despite shortcomings, Donatello seldom made the mistake of merging the subject in the artist's model: he did not forget that the subject of his statue had a biography. He had no such canon. Italian painting had been under the sway of Margaritone until Giotto destroyed the traditional system. Early Italian coins show how convention breeds a canon—they were often depraved survivals of imperial coins, copied and recopied by successive generations until the original meaning had completely vanished, while the semblance remained in debased outline. Nothing can be more fatal than to make a canon of art, to render precise and exact the laws of æsthetics. Great men, it is true, made the attempt. Leonardo, for instance, gives the recipe for drawing anger and despair. His "Trattato della Pintura"[19] describes the gestures appropriate for an orator addressing a multitude, and he gives rules for making a tempest or a deluge. He had a scientific law for putting a battle on to canvas, one condition of which was that "there must not be a level spot which is not trampled with gore." But Leonardo da Vinci did no harm; his canon was based on literary rather than artistic interests, and he was too wise to pay much attention to his own rules. Another man who tried to systematise art was Leon Battista Alberti, who gave the exact measurements of ideal beauty, length and circumference of limbs, &c., thus approaching a physical canon. The absurdity of these theories is well shown in the "Rules of Drawing Caricatures," illustrated by "mathematical diagrams."[20] Development and animation are impossible wherever an art is governed by this sterile and deadening code of law. The religious art of the Eastern Church has been stationary for centuries, confined within the narrow limits of hieratic conventions. Mount Athos has the pathetic interest of showing the dark ages surviving down to our own day in the vigour of unabated decadence. Though not subjected to any serious canon, the predecessors of Donatello seemed at one time in danger of becoming conventionalised. But Donatello would not permit his art to be divorced from appeals to reason and intellect; once started, his theory held its own. Donatello was bound by no laws; with all its cadence and complexity his art was unsuited to a canon as would be the art of music. He seems almost to have disregarded the ordinary physical limitations under which he worked. He had no "cant of material," and whether in stone, bronze, wood, or clay, he went straight ahead in the most unconcerned manner.
Alinari
HABAKKUK
CAMPANILE, FLORENCE
Habbakuk and the Sense of Distance.
We do not know much about Habbakuk. He left two or three pages of passionate complaint against the iniquity of the land, but his "burden" lacks those outbursts of lyric poetry which are found in most of the other minor prophets. Donatello gives him the air of a thinker. He holds a long scroll to which he points with his right hand while looking downward, towards the door of the Cathedral. It is a strong head, as full of character as the Jeremiah. But Habbakuk is less the man of action, and the deep lines about the mouth and across the forehead show rather the fruits of contemplation. There may be a note of scepticism in the face. But this Habbakuk is no ascetic, and there is much strength in reserve: his comment though acrid would be just. The veins in the throat stand out like cords. They are much more noticeable in the photograph than when one sees the statue from the Piazza. It must be remembered that these figures on the Campanile are something like fifty-five feet from the ground: they were made for these lofty positions, and were carved accordingly. They show Donatello's sense of distance; the Zuccone shows his sense of light and shade, the Abraham his sense of proportion. Donatello had the advantage of making these figures for particular places; his sculpture was eminently adapted to the conditions under which it was to be seen. In the vast majority of cases modern sculpture is made for undetermined positions, and is fortunate if it obtains a suitable emplacement. It seldom gets distance, light and proportion in harmony with the technical character of the carving. Donatello paid the greatest care to the relation between the location of the statue and its carving: his work consequently suffers enormously by removal: to change its position is to take away something given it by the master himself. The Judith looks mean beneath the Loggia de' Lanzi; the original of the St. George in the museum is less telling than the copy which has replaced it at Or San Michele. Photography is also apt to show too clearly certain exaggerations and violences deliberately calculated by Donatello to compensate for distance, as on the Campanile, or for darkness, as on the Cantoria. The reproductions, therefore, of those works not intended to be seen from close by must be judged with this reservation. The classical sculptors seem to have been oblivious of this sense of distance. Cases have been quoted to show that they did realise it, such as the protruding forehead of Zeus or the deep-set eyes of the Vatican Medusa. These are accidents, or at best coincidences, for the sense of distance is not shown by merely giving prominence to one portion or feature of a face. In Roman art the band of relief on the Column of Trajan certainly gets slightly broader as the height increases: but the modification was half-hearted. It does not help one to see the carving, which at