DONATELLO

WHERE? Sainsbury Gallery, V&A, South Kensington, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL

WHEN? Now until 11th June 

WHY GO? It’s a first, the first major UK exhibition that explores everything about this great Italian sculptor, and it is majestic.

What do we know about Donatello? His name resonates with the grandeur of the Renaissance period, but if asked, what is his most famous masterpiece? Few of us would instantly know. 

Is it his Bronze statue of David, the infamous, first free-standing male nude or one of his saintly marble carvings of the Madonna and Child? 

 Now all is revealed. Donatello (actually a nickname that stuck) was daringly creative, influenced generations of sculptors that followed such as Michelangelo and Canova, evolving his style and the materials he worked with continually, and was IN with the great Medici family, a passport to fame and glory.

IN THE KNOW This once-in-a- lifetime exhibition highlights many of the V&A’s great Italian Renaissance treasures while showcasing loans from around the world but, it must be noted, some of Donatello’s most famous works in situ were obviously deemed too fragile to travel.

Beautifully curated in sections to tell the story of Donatello and his contemporaries at a time when artistic rivalry was rife and patron-ship was highly privileged.  

Despite his prolific religious works, Donatello was said to be agnostic and ironically was sculpting away in a Florentine church when he died in 1466 at the grand age of 80, while it’s claimed, the saints were watching over him!