Word: donatello
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...John Ruskin, making a pilgrimage to the ancient refectory of Santa Croce in the 19th Century, found it had become a bustling carpet factory; to view what remained of its frescoes he was obliged to scale a loom. He saw a whole street of Florence, including the quarters of Donatello and Bronzino, torn down to make room for a cheap-jack row of shops devoted to "bijouterie and parfumerie...
...centuries Donatella's San Ludovico statue was regarded as one of his poorer works. According to the gossipy Renaissance critic, Vasari, somebody once asked the 15th Century sculptor why he had made the saint look so stupid and clumsy, to which Donatello replied that it was all on purpose-he thought Ludovico must have been a sorry fellow to pass up the kingdom of Naples to become a monk...
Slowly a green crust spread over the maligned statue, darkening and coarsening it until people could hardly believe it was Donatello's at all. At last, in 1908, it was taken down from its place in Florence's church of Santa Croce. When the retreating Nazis demolished the city's ancient bridges and damaged its Uffizi Gallery and Santa Croce, San Ludovico stood serene in an abandoned railroad tunnel, waiting for peace, and justice...
Perhaps San Ludovico did not represent Donatello's art at its best, but the soft-flowing vestments, meditative young head, and miter adorned with crystals and blue enameling looked good to U.S. gallerygoers. Their money looked mighty good to the Italians who would use it to restore war-damaged landmarks back in Florence. "The art of Florence belongs to the whole world," said one of them last week and, so the world should contribute...
...circumcision ceremony of the secret Poro Society of the Ivory Coast Dan Tribe, slams at the eye like a fist. The Ashanti fertility fetish, carried on the backs of pregnant women to help make their children beautiful, has the simplicity of a lollipop but the elegance of a Donatello; the yellow & black Ibibio carving, used in secret female dances, sits its crescent moon with awesome assurance; and the Mpongwe stilt-dance "Mask of the Dead" is ennobled, not coarsened, by its cruel tattoos...