Sculpture

Renaissance sculpture was the medium most obviously influenced by ancient forms, as Italian artists created sculpture in a truly classical style. Because the polychrome color was lost from ancient statues and buildings, Italian artists thought that the ancients did not color their sculpture, and thus their classicizing sculpture usually remained uncolored. During the 15th century, many northern sculptors, as well as southern sculptors living outside Italy, continued the medieval practice of coloring their work. As in painting, the renewal of sculpture began in northern Italy, where artists combined the realism of Flemish style with an understanding of human anatomy and of the movement of the human figure in volumetric space. using classical statues as their inspiration, Italian 15th-century sculptors created “the beginning of good modern style” (thus Vasari 1998, p. 92, describes the work of Ghiberti). The Florentine goldsmith and sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455) owned a collection of antique sculpture, including bronze statuary. He achieved artistic immortality in 1401, when he won a much-publicized competition to create bronze-paneled doors for the baptistry in Florence, the first major sculpture commission of the Italian Renaissance.

Handbook to Life in Renaissance Europe

These contests, which continued throughout the Renaissance, were necessary because a patron undertaking a major sculptural project was committing to a significant investment in time and materials. The cost of transporting stone from the quarry, for example, could be prohibitive. Unlike a painting or tapestry, which could be commissioned on the strength of sketches, the three-dimensional quality of sculpture, as of architecture, usually required that artists submit models and budgets. Models were required for major commissions. Not surprisingly, the public nature of such competitions not only enhanced the fame of the winner, but also helped to raise the status of sculptors in general.