Stiacciato (Tuscan) or schiacciato (Italian for "pressed" or "flattened out") is a technique where a sculptor creates a very shallow relief sculpture with carving only millimetres deep. [1] The rilievo stiacciato is primarily associated with Donatello (1386–1466).
To give the illusion of space a sculptor used the actual physical depth of a relief, from the most protruding parts of figures with the most plasticity to the flat background plane, which was gilded or otherwise decorated in a two-dimensional manner. The thickness of the carving gradually decreased from the foreground to the background and with further distance in relation to the beholder. In rilievo stiacciato the physical depth may only measure a few centimeters or even millimeters and consist of merely incised lines and minute alterations of the plane. But the different elevations of the objects in the relief do not translate analogous to their place in the space displayed. [2] The gradations are (to be) read as tonal values (valeurs) of light and shade rather than plastic volumes. In that way it is more similar to a two-dimensional monochrome painting or drawing than a three-dimensional sculpture, although undercutting of figures or objects in the foreground is used to gain plasticity. The technique also allows the construction of graphical perspective in the relief. [3]
The most influential art historian and a Renaissance master in his own right, Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574), coined the term and wrote of the technique: [4]
The third type [of reliefs] is called flat and pressed ["stiacciato"] relief, which show nothing but the drawing of the figure in a pressed and flattened out elevation. They are very difficult to execute, because it requires great skill in disegno and inventione , and it is challenging to create gracefulness by contours alone. And in this genre too Donato [ie Donatello] worked better than any other sculptor, with arte, disegno and inventione. Many figures, masks and other ancient scenes of this type have been seen on antique Aretine vases; and similarly on ancient cameos and bronze-stamping cones for medals and coins.
In the fifteenth century the technique was most prominently used for sculptural reliefs. It was introduced and dominated by Donatello, applying it in the majority of cases to marble and bronze, but terracotta and stucco as well. The earliest surviving example is his St. George Freeing the Princess (1416–17), which is also the first surviving example of a perspectival projection, although the spatial illusion is predominantly achieved through the carving technique. [3] His other works in the genre include the so-called Pazzi Madonna (around 1420–30), The Feast of Herod for the Siena Baptistery (1423–27), which is not exclusively stiacciato due to its companion pieces by Lorenzo Ghiberti and others. In about the same period he created The Assumption of the Virgin for Sant'Angelo a Nilo in Naples (1426–28), along with the Hildburgh Madonna (ca. 1426), its execution attributed to his workshop. With The Ascension with Christ Giving the Keys to Saint Peter (1428–30), probably for the guardaroba of Cosimo de' Medici, he accomplished to create even atmosphere. With a very low vanishing point way beneath the bottom line, the scene seems to happen on a hazy hilltop. Maybe his most accomplished work in this technique depicts, once again, a Feast of Herod, and is dated to around 1435 (Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille).
There were hardly any successors who worked in the technique of relievo stiacciato. In the next generation only Donatello's student Desiderio da Settignano (Saint Jerome in the Desert), Mino da Fiesole and the brothers Antonio and Bernardo Rossellino (Madonna with Child and Two Putti), and Agostino di Duccio, created bas-reliefs of this type. We know one early work from Michelangelo in which he tried out Donatello's technique obviously as a result of studying the master, the Madonna of the Stairs from 1491, when he was 16 years old, and then again over ten years later, in the tondos for the Pitti and the Taddei (around 1403–06).
Already in 1275 Vitello spoke of the proportional relationship between the distance of an object and its optical flattening. In the relievo stiacciato, however, the subject of the picture has moved "categorically into the distance". [5] Leonardo da Vinci saw the bas-relief as an overall inadequate hybrid of sculpture and painting and denied the possibility of not only being able to satisfactorily implement a central perspective projection in the relief, but also noted the lack of the aerial perspective that is exclusive to painting, the sfumato . He obviously did not know the relief of The Presentation of the Keys to St. Peter, in which Donatello was able to create exactly this using the most delicate gradations. [6] The proximity to drawing and painting was probably too great to make the effort worthwhile. Painting a relief like that of St. Peter would destroy the effect of the relief work, and the application of paint gives plaster an unsightly and difficult to read rough surface, as Donatello probably saw himself with his tondos in the Sagrestia Vecchia. The intellectual question of the paragone between sculpture and painting, which only became a major topic in the 16th century, was addressed here for the first time to painting, which was nevertheless more dependent on sculpture for models than was ever the case the other way around. [7]
Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, known mononymously as Donatello, was an Italian sculptor of the Renaissance period. Born in Florence, he studied classical sculpture and used his knowledge to develop an Early Renaissance style of sculpture. He spent time in other cities, where he worked on commissions and taught others; his periods in Rome, Padua, and Siena introduced to other parts of Italy the techniques he had developed in the course of a long and productive career. His David was the first freestanding nude male sculpture since antiquity; like much of his work it was commissioned by the Medici family.
Mino da Fiesole, also known as Mino di Giovanni, was an Italian Renaissance sculptor from Poppi, Tuscany. He is noted for his portrait busts.
Desiderio da Settignano, real name Desiderio de Bartolomeo di Francesco detto Ferro was an Italian Renaissance sculptor active in north Italy.
Antonio Gamberelli (1427–1479), nicknamed Antonio Rossellino for the colour of his hair, was an Italian Renaissance sculptor. His older brother, from whom he received his formal training, was the sculptor and architect Bernardo Rossellino.
Bernardo di Matteo del Borra Gamberelli (1409–1464), better known as Bernardo Rossellino, was an Italian Renaissance sculptor and architect, the elder brother of the sculptor Antonio Rossellino. As a member of the second generation of Renaissance artists, he helped to further define and popularize the revolution in artistic approach that characterized the new age. His work is often hard to distinguish from that of his brothers working in the family workshop.
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Michelozzo di Bartolomeo Michelozzi was an Italian architect and sculptor. Considered one of the great pioneers of architecture during the Renaissance, Michelozzo was a favored Medici architect who was extensively employed by Cosimo de' Medici. He was a pupil of Lorenzo Ghiberti in his early years, and later collaborated with Donatello.
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The decade of the 1420s in art involved some significant events.
The decade of the 1430s in art involved some significant events.
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The Feast of Herod is a bronze relief sculpture created by Donatello circa 1427. It was made for the font of the Siena Baptistery of San Giovanni in Italy. It is one of Donatello's earliest relief sculptures, and his first bronze relief. The sculpture is noted for Donatello's use of perspective. The piece is 60 by 61 centimeters.
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The following catalog of works by the Florentine sculptor Donatello is based on the monographs by H. W. Janson (1957), Ronald Lightbown (1980), and John Pope-Hennessy (1996), as well as the catalogs of the 2022/2023 exhibitions in Florence, Berlin and London. In the case of unsigned or documented works, the attributions and dates are, as is usual, based predominantly on stylistic criteria and analogies to secured works. Many of the works attributed to Donatello were created in collaboration with other artists and with specialists in specific techniques.