'Spain' and 'Donatello' Exhibitions

A couple of weeks ago I visited two new exhibitions in London: 'Spain and the Hispanic World' at the Royal Academy and 'Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance' at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The new exhibition season is kicking off in style.

'Spain and the Hispanic World' includes around 150 exhibits from the collection of the Hispanic Society Museum and Library in New York so it's as much an exhibition about the Society as it is about the Hispanic world. The first room contained works created a few thousand years ago by the first waves of settler to occupy what we now consider to be Spain, including Celts. It then moves forward in time from the different kingdoms to the unification of Spain and to conquest in the New World, ending with works by more modern artists including Sorella.

The exhibits covered everything you could think of: ceramics, glassware, cloth, books, paintings, sculptures, jewellery, religious works and more. I particularly liked the travelling writing cabinets with all the little drawers for papers, pens and inks, some decorated and others plain. The signs on the walls helped with context, pointing out that the high costs of importing goods from Spain to South America meant that local craftsmen and women sprang up to meet the demand from the colonisers for their luxury goods. The downside of that is so many exhibits being attributed to 'unknown artist'. 

There was a gorgeous little 'Pieta' by El Greco, a room with a few Goyas and two works by Velazquez, one of a man at court with the most perfect left hand where you can see the hints of veins underneath the skin. Such astonishing skill. 

The exhibition closed with some Sorella paintings including a sketch in gouache that Sorella did for his epic work, 'Visions of Spain'. Apparently he sketched it out on rolls of kraft paper so he could extend it to any length he wanted. I didn't know Sorella used gouache, the sketches I've seen in the Sorella Museum in Madrid were all in oils. 

The second exhibition, 'Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance' focused on the work of the early 15th Century Florentine sculptor Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi known as Donatello. I couldn't help but smile as I entered the exhibition and saw the first of the old glories awaiting me. I've seen Donatello's works before, in exhibitions and in situ in Florence but never so many together. 15th Century Florence was a hothouse of artistic and intellectual development, the creation of mathematical perspective and re-discovery of the art of the ancients.  And Donatello was there at the start of it all, helping to create a new way of story-telling through his art. 

As you'd expect, there are lots of works by Donatello, sculptures, reliefs and bronzes, as well as example of works he influenced by painters and sculptors, not just contemporary but in the centuries after his death. Sadly, many works were attributed to 'unknown artist', something that always makes me sad. Someone worked for years to acquire the skills to create great art and we don't even know their name. On the other hand, we actually have Donatello's account books showing the detail of what he earned and spent (and what on) and these are in the exhibition. I wonder who's account books will be discovered next in a dusty library somewhere?

My first moment of excitement came when I spied a small painting out of the corner of my eye that included what I think of as Fra Angelico pink and I wondered and then hurried over to it. It was a small 'Adoration' by Masaccio and, apparently, Donatello picked up the payment for the work since they were friends. Masaccio is also thought to have been a chum of Fra Angelico so it's likely that they all knew each other and their works. There were other paintings by Filippo Lippi and Bellini illustrating Donatello's influence in both composition and technique.

There was a marvellous little bronze called 'Attis-Amorino' by Donatello which is a mixture of various classical characters: the shepherd Attis with the wings of Cupid, the tail of a faun, the winged feet of Mercury and the snake associated with Hercules. So many allusions to classical tales to identify and such a joyous pose and smile. I loved it. 

As a Quattrocento boy I loved the exhibition, full of so many joyous and emotionally charged works. I will visit again.