A pupil: Bertoldo of Giovanni

A pupil is usually marginal presence in art, in store is less than very low, at last he isn’t Leonardo from Vinci, that has had distinguished, above all to two angels on left of Baptism of Christ(Fig.1); we know perfectly that Leonardo after followed his way and he has had immense artist, but he no certainly followed his master, Andrea Verrocchio; he followed alone Leonardo da Vinci! Differently from Bertoldo di Giovanni(1420-1491), followed his master, Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi(1386-1466), called Donatello, he rightly, to commercial motive merely he copied in little dimensions works of his master, and he took some point very innovative in sculpture, as prospective in high relief, we can consider The fight between Romans and Barbarian troops(Fig.2); an example to understand the sculpture perspective; this is tridimensional creation in high relief; he has used geometrical perspective of Filippo Brunelleschi, and has translated on the sculpture, and Bertoldo has used on moderate conception, but he hasn’t averted the analysis from Donatello; in fact on his works Hercules(Figs.8-9) and other work with Equestrian statue(Figs.10-11), he took from David; but he didn’t lost the taste of perspective, in fact on other works he reused this motive of false perspective(Figs.2-7), evidently costumers wanted it and he worked so because it is a revolutionary conception of plastic art, on material production Donatello inserted a immaterial think, he has rendered an abstract think, as reality, evidently it is costume or fashion; but we have also reference that confirms this use, a letter, dated 29^th July 1479, of same Bertoldo to Lorenzo de Medici said: “To this moment I have thrown chisels, scalpels, drawings squares, wax, architecture, perspective”, why architecture? He is a sculpture and no certainly an architect; evidently he has reference to sculpture architecture and prospective alone of high relief; therefore he is donatellian sculpture; he mentioned these peculiarity because these are major qualities of this works; but afore said these characteristics are from Donatello and he has follows his master; therefore it confirms that taste of Donatello, to translated abstract think on reality is certain.

Alessandro Lusana  

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