Saint Mark Statue Analysis

Words: 359
Pages: 2
Open Document
The statue of Saint Mark was built in the fifteen century between the years of 1411-1413 and is located in the region of Florence Italy. The creator of the statute was Donatello, who was one of Ghiberti’s young assistants. The guild of Linen Weavers turned to Donatello “to fill its niche with a figure” (Davies 518). The statue itself is imposing due to its large features and its height of almost 8 feet. Some of these features that make St. Mark so imposing are his hands, deeply carved eyes and beard along with his stance. “His large, powerful hands grip a book (gospel)”, while his eyes and beard portrays a powerful personality (Davies 518-519). St. Mark is standing so that one leg if flexed while the other is holding all of the weight of the body (Davies 519). Donatello learned this method of posing a body from the arts of the ancients (Davies 519. This is called a contrapposto stance. Donatello was known to treat the human body as an articulated structure that was capable of movement, with its drapery “as a separate element that is based on the shapes underneath rather than on patterns and shapes imposed from the outside”(Davies 519). Additionally, the clothing used for this sculpture drapes the body and fall in deep folds “to reveal and emphasize his posture (Davies 519). Donatello used a unique technique that enabled him to balance the sculpture by …show more content…
The career that he had was “long and productive making him the most influential sculptor of fifteenth-century Italy” (Davies 519). The statue was also influential because it was made out of marble and gives the appearance that it is able to move (Kren, Davies). The sculpture of St. Mark tells us that Donatello studies from the ancient works of sculpture and he placed importance on the naturalistic form (Davies
Show More

Related Documents: Saint Mark Statue Analysis

Art History Essay

The Vatican is located on the left bank of the Tiber River in Rome, where, according to tradition, Saint Peter, the first pope and the apostle to whom Christ had left in charge of his ministry, was martyred in 67 A.D. In 320–27 A.D. the emperor Constantine built a five-aisled basilica atop the early Christian necropolis that was Peter's resting place, with a shrine in the apse of the church to mark the location of Peter's tomb. During the medieval decline of Rome and frequent barbarian invasions…

Words 993 - Pages 4

Essay on Ethology and Behavior Animal Behavior

Dualism i. Maintained that humans are unique from animals because of their ability for mental experience (Mind) b. Subscribed to Descartes’ mechanical theory of Animal behavior (inspired by moving statues in the gardens of the Saint Germain palace) c. Descartes conceived animals as complex “moving statues” equipped with finer tubes and faster and lighter fluids called “animal spirits (?) d. Thus, they maintained that animals (w/no soul or free-will) operated as mere machines or brutes and followed…

Words 5614 - Pages 23