Martin Gayford

Unmissable: Donatello – Sculpting the Renaissance, at the V&A, reviewed

What a privilege to be able to peer at so many masterpieces by this dynamo of the renaissance

‘Madonna of the Clouds’, c.1425–35, by Donatello. Credit: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 
issue 11 February 2023

‘Donatello is the real hero of Florentine sculpture’, so Antony Gormley has proclaimed (hugely though he admires Michelangelo). It’s hard to disagree. But the full range of his work is hard to see, spread out as it is on altars and tombs through Florence and elsewhere in Italy. This makes Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance at the V&A an unmissable treat.

Donatello was versatile, prolific, inventive, influential and long-lived

Throughout much of the Quattrocento, Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi (c.1386-1466)

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