Wednesday 4th September 2024
Donatello: Renaissance Genius
Lecturer: Paula Nuttall
Paula Nuttall gave a very entertaining and informative talk on Donatello: Renaissance Genius. He was one of the artistic giants of the Italian Renaissance. Our own V&A in London has the best collection of Donatello’s work outside Italy. He had such creativity and versatility. His father was a goldsmith and it was highly unusual at that time that he didn’t follow his father’s footsteps. He wanted to become an artist. He did initially train as a goldsmith and this was a very useful skill for his art in later life. He was able to work with confidence in metal, stone, marble and wood. His subjects, in whichever medium, looked realistic and all his faces were individual. He showed a great sense of depth and perspective, and his sense of storytelling was evident in all his friezes. Donatello produced the first full sized bronze nude in the round. He explored and demonstrated a huge emotional range and was able to convey intense emotion. The lecture was supported by fabulous slides and Paula provided a reading list for us to take away.
St George, for Orsanmichele
Paula is a specialist in Italian and Northern European Renaissance art and has published widely, notably From Flanders to Florence: The Impact of Netherlandish Painting 1400-1500 (Yale, 2004). She has collaborated on major exhibitions, including Jan Eyck: an Optical Revolution (Ghent, 2020), is a former Director of the V&A Medieval and Renaissance Year course, and a lecturer at both the Courtauld Institute and the British Institute of Florence.
