Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/747

 SCULPTURE 721 sculpture may be described in general terms as a continuation of that of Greece ; the best artists were Greeks, and there is no record of the production of a work of any considerable merit by a native sculptor. Italy nevertheless claims the honor of having been the seat of the revival in modern times, not of sculpture merely, but of all the imitative arts. During the period known as the dark ages the arts were in some degree kept alive by the monks of the early Greek and Latin churches ; but a style and treatment founded on new concep- tions of the purposes to which art should be applied and guided by Christianity, had gradu- ally superseded those of pagan artists. The general causes which produced this result are enumerated in the article PAINTING. With Nicola Pisano, who flourished in the first half of the 13th century, the authentic history of modern sculpture properly begins, notwith- standing the preceding century had witnessed the production of works of decided originality, if rude and repulsive in comparison with the wonders of the Greek schools. The mission of the sculptor was similar to that of the Greek artists in the archaic and Phidian periods ; but unlike the latter, who improved upon estab- lished types, he was compelled to have direct recourse to nature as it existed about him, the remains of antique art then extant being too insignificant to afford models, and according in no respect with the character of the age. Hence modern sculpture, and indeed every de- partment of modern art, was at the outset as widely separated from that of the Greek schools, as the religion which inspired it dif- fered from every system which had preceded. Nicola and his son, Giovanni Pisano, were among the earliest to practise sculpture as a sep- ara^fr art, and the distinctive character which it assumed in their hands gave the first deci- ded impulse to its cultivation in Italy. Their works, consisting of bass reliefs on the facades and pulpits of churches in Pisa, Orvieto, Siena, and other Italian cities, exhibit a beauty and simplicity of composition, and a force of ex- pression, which abundantly compensate for technical shortcomings. Their conceptions of nature are naive and original, and there is scarcely a trace of the influence of the antique in their productions or those of their contem- poraries, notwithstanding that their superior- ity to any preceding artist is supposed to have been acquired only by the study of such ancient sculptures as were preserved in Pisa and else- where. The art inaugurated by the Pisani was further developed during the succeeding cen- tury by Andrea Pisano, who executed in bronze the oldest door of the baptistery of St. John in Florence ; by Andrea Orcagna, the Masucci, and others, whose genius was chiefly devoted to monumental sculpture and the execution of elaborate ornaments, bass reliefs, and small figures on altars. Of the latter kind of work the altar in the chapel of San Michele in Flor- ence, by Orcagna, is a celebrated specimen. At the close of the 14th century sculpture, under the influence given to modern art by Giotto, who in turn owed much to the exam- ple of Nicola Pisano, had attained a consider- able degree of perfection ; but with the com- mencement of the 15th, which has been called the golden age of modern sculpture, as the 16th was of painting, it entered upon a grander epoch, the chief production of which was Lo- renzo Ghiberti's celebrated bronze doors for the baptistery of St. John in Florence, which not only exceeded every previous effort of modern sculpture, but have remained to the present time a masterpiece of the art of bass relief. Among the competitors for the first door of St. John were Donato di Betto Bardi, better known as Donatello, and Brunelleschi, called by the Italians Filippo di Brunellesco, both of whom were the friends and contem- poraries of Ghiberti. Brunelleschi was most distinguished as an architect, but Donatello, by his noble statues of St. Mark and St. George, and other works distinguished by bold concep- tion and vigorous execution, gained a foremost place among modern sculptors. Luca della Robbia is celebrated for his groups of the Vir- gin and Christ, and other sacred subjects, exe- cuted in terra cotta, and hardened by a pecu- liar process, the secret of which is said to have perished with him. Among other sculptors of the 15th century were Simone, the brother, and Giovanni da Pisa, one of the many schol- ars of Donatello ; the Pollajuoli ; Andrea Ve- rocchio, at one time a painter and the master of Perugino and Leonardo da Vinci ; and An- drea Ferrucci ; all of whom were chiefly em- ployed on sacred subjects for churches and convents. Toward the close of the 15th cen- tury sculpture, in common with the other arts, began to feel the influence of the newly awa- kened taste for the antique; and religious sub- jects were succeeded by those suggested by classical history or mythology, the treatment being founded upon the ancient marbles and bronzes which the zeal of the Medici and oth- er enlightened art patrons then first caused to be exhumed. But if the classical mode of rep- resentation was appropriate to strictly classical subjects, and the study of the antique of ad- vantage with respect to the technicalities of the art, the introduction of pagan forms and ideas into works of a purely Christian charac- ter was calculated to check the healthful devel- opment which art had already taken, and to weaken its influence in addressing modern sympathies. A pseudo-classical style, founded on mere imitation, uninspired by the sentiment which influenced the ancient artists, and irre- concilable with the spirit of the age, thence- forth made rapid innovations upon the prac- tice of sculpture, and the art, while in the maturity of its promise, began to decline. At this period the most extraordinary charac- ter in the history of modern art produced his masterpieces of form. The works of Michel Angelo Buonarroti are beyond comparison the