Martelli Saint John (detail), ca. 1440-1457, Settignano and Donatello
The size and proportion of Martelli Saint John by Settignano and Donatello also resonate Settignano's portraits of small children with their delicate features. You feel like the proportions were sent down from somewhere in the heaven on high. The extremely refined work was of a genre of sculpture from this time that also included della Robbia and Verrocchio. One wonders how such liberation of thinking occurred but often artists seem to have an extremely different philosophy of life. Geometry and cosmology were often thought about and seem to have had a completely different focus to the thinking of today. You would not be thinking a mathematical equation of the head could equal the pattern of the stars or the proportions of a tree or a flower could be of significance to the size, breadth and depth of the chest and length of the arms and legs, for example. But then again everything we look at and feel in our hearts has an influence on our perception.
Laughing Boy, c. 1460-1464, Desiderio da Settignano,
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
The Little Boy, c. 1455-1460, Desiderio da Settignano,
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Portrait of a Young Boy, c. 1445, Luca della Robbia,
Museo Civico Gaetano Filangieri, Naples
Woman with Posy, c. 1475, Verrocchio,
Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence
