After working under many masters and learning many skills, Donatello developed his own ideas about art and perfection, while developing skills and creating new techniques. One of these techniques is called “rilievo schiacciato” or flattened relief. This is a technique that uses very shallow carving in marble or bronze and allows more space or an illusion for space while creating depth and volume. Space was very important to early renaissance artists because ………..
A technique Donatello used in his works that followed in the lines of the Italian renaissance art was linear perspective, that also allowed the illusion of space and depth. Italian artists would say that they used linear perspective as a mean of taking the viewers perspective and connecting relationships between space that can be seen and the space that is depicted. Linear perspective artists use mathematical rules to measure and determine distance between objects, sizes of objects, angles of architecture, buildings or sculpture. This technique was widely used by many artists in the early renaissance. It made specific contributions to this new style of art where in the work it shows a combination of art and science, symbolic focuses or emphasis, clarification of objects and space, and a new relationship between the viewer and the work of art.
The last technique or skill, of many, that will be discussed comes from the Italian Renaissance and was used by Donatello and other artists is the study of anatomy that comes from Roman and Greek sculptures. There was a new interest in making art that represents the human body moving in natural ways, in correct proportions. Many artists used live models to study the outside details of the human body, while also using dissection to understand the inside or underlying structure and muscles of the human body under the skin a well. Donatello uses this in The Madonna of the Clouds in all his figures, as he uses anatomy and naturalism to show real figures in the realest way possible. He does this by showing how proportionally correct Mary is to herself but also to small baby Jesus who sits on her leg holding on to her, as she holds on to him.
