Work of Art

PRESENTATION

DONATELLO (Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi), Saint Marc, 1411 - 1413, marbre, h. 236, Firenze, Orsanmichele.

Quotation

Providence yet kinder, gave us two Arts, which might express the very Lines of the Face, the Air of the Countenance, and in it a great part of the Mind of all those whom they should undertake to Represent ; and these are, Sculpture and Painting.
           
Michael Angelo, the famousest Sculptor of these Modern Ages, looking one day earnestly upon a Statue of St. Mark made by Donatello, after having long admired it, said at last, That if Saint Mark were like that Statue, he would have believed his Gospel upon his Physionomy, for it was the honestest Face that ever was made. ’Tis hard to say, whether he commended the Artist, the Saint, or the Art it self most by this Expression : But this Inference we may make from it, That if the Faces of Heroes do express the Greatness of their Minds, those Arts which perpetuate their Memory that way, are the truest of all Records.

Quotation

Providence yet kinder, gave us two Arts, which might express the very Lines of the Face, the Air of the Countenance, and in it a great part of the Mind of all those whom they should undertake to Represent ; and these are, Sculpture and Painting.
           
Michael Angelo, the famousest Sculptor of these Modern Ages, looking one day earnestly upon a Statue of St. Mark made by Donatello, after having long admired it, said at last, That if Saint Mark were like that Statue, he would have believed his Gospel upon his Physionomy, for it was the honestest Face that ever was made. ’Tis hard to say, whether he commended the Artist, the Saint, or the Art it self most by this Expression : But this Inference we may make from it, That if the Faces of Heroes do express the Greatness of their Minds, those Arts which perpetuate their Memory that way, are the truest of all Records.