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Interesting facts about

Italian Sculptures

Renaissance was an efflorescence driven primarily by man's enhanced awareness.

While at one level, it turned his inner focus to the beauty and harmony in the human
form, at another, it analyzed man's perception of distance and space within the matrix
of time, material and techniques. The resultant rebirth imparted a touch of genius in
every art form- especially in sculpture.
The Renaissance influence concretized in sculpture in myriad ways. Anatomy and
drapery ceased to be symbolic-it had to be formed through observation and
assimilation of classical forms. Geometric shapes permeated the balanced, closed
compositions and you discover that triangles, circles and triangles form the basic grid. A
harmony of space resembling the eye of vision is also apparent that led to portrayal of
realistic space simulating three dimensions.
The experimentation (as all art is in its initial stages) proved successful and sustainable
due to its powerful patronage by the Papacy and the Church who had no better way
of glorifying themselves. The increasingly opulent churches became dependent on the
master sculptors to populate the spaces with masterpieces that even today make you
wonder whether they will blink!

Michelangelo's David (Galleria dell

'Accademia, Florence)
His David was much more than he one who
fought and won over Goliath. It is imbued with
the over powering strength, determination and
power of the ordinary person who can
conquer all. Michelangelo worshiped the male
nude as the ultimate form and used torsion
(twisting the body in one direction) or
contraposto (twisting the body in contradictory
directions) to bring out their musculature. You
will be entranced by the perfect Renaissance
nude a masterpiece of sculpture that became
a symbolic of the power of ideas and the
Renaissance.

Lorenzo Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise

In 1401, young Ghiberti won the honor to craft
the doors of Florence's Baptistery. Completed
over a period of fifty-one years, it sent the Gothic
format into an ethereal orbit of three dimensions
.It was the defining moment of Renaissance
reality that invented space and added a new
dimension. The great master Michelangelo
himself was wonderstruck and declared them to
be "so beautiful they would grace the entrance
to Paradise.

Pisano Pulpits (Duomo, Siena; Sant' Andrea,

Pistoia; Baptistery and Duomo, Pisa)
Father Nicola and son Giovanni, first invented
and then refined the Gothic sculpture. While
there once stood the largely symbolic and
stilted figures, the duo transfused a new life, a
new emotional language and volume to
sculpture that transformed hard stone into fluid
grace. The figures are so arresting that you
almost the eyes to flutter!

Luca Signorelli's Last Judgment (Duomo,

Orvieto)
Having recently emerged from years of
restoration, Signorelli's signature piece uses the
separation of the blessed from the damned as
an excuse to display his mastery of the human
nude. It had all the elements that hallmarked
the Renaissance sculptures. Every muscle was
etched, each fiber taut. Michelangelo studied
this seminal work before embarking on the
subject in the Sistine Chapel.

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