DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61670#0068
42
LUCA DELLA ROBBIA
feelings, actions of a special moment ... to abstract and express
only ‘what is structural and permanent." 1
This comparative abstraction from the dominating con-
temporary interests prevented Luca from attracting disciples
and forming a school outside his own immediate family.
Even these—his own kin, the inheritors of his teaching and
traditions—once his personal influence was removed, veered
round to the more dramatic and realistic style of Donatello
and his imitators. Even Andrea himself, as we shall see later,
exchanged his simple treatment for the artificial mannerisms of
Verrocchio. Luca’s impersonal tranquillity, his simplicity and
directness, found few imitators in an age desirous of exhibiting
its new-found powers, an age already tending towards the
dramatic and emotional art of the following century. The
art of Luca was always serene, earnest and thoughtful, but
entirely free from any sort of emotionalism or love of
display.
He has been called the Idealist in an age of Realism,
specially representative of its religious and spiritual side, and
certainly his treatment of the Christian themes argues profound
conviction and reverence. He never, like so many of his con-
temporaries, attempted to secularise and turn them into mere
scenes of everyday life, but touches them on their loftiest and
most imaginative side. He is religious in the widest, truest
meaning of the word, in his recognition of the nobler elements
in humanity and the truth of high ideals. He was an incom-
parable interpreter of the Church’s teaching, because, while his
science enabled him to give convincing reality to her themes,
he emphasizes their symbolic and spiritual meaning. As
Donatello was before all the interpreter of the intellectual
ability, the energy and self-sufficiency of humanity, as Ghiberti
of its physical grace and charm, so was Luca of its spiritual
tendencies and aspirations. He was not, however, like Fra
Angelico, content with the expression of moral beauty only,
1 Pater, “The Renaissance,” London, 1877, p. 71.
LUCA DELLA ROBBIA
feelings, actions of a special moment ... to abstract and express
only ‘what is structural and permanent." 1
This comparative abstraction from the dominating con-
temporary interests prevented Luca from attracting disciples
and forming a school outside his own immediate family.
Even these—his own kin, the inheritors of his teaching and
traditions—once his personal influence was removed, veered
round to the more dramatic and realistic style of Donatello
and his imitators. Even Andrea himself, as we shall see later,
exchanged his simple treatment for the artificial mannerisms of
Verrocchio. Luca’s impersonal tranquillity, his simplicity and
directness, found few imitators in an age desirous of exhibiting
its new-found powers, an age already tending towards the
dramatic and emotional art of the following century. The
art of Luca was always serene, earnest and thoughtful, but
entirely free from any sort of emotionalism or love of
display.
He has been called the Idealist in an age of Realism,
specially representative of its religious and spiritual side, and
certainly his treatment of the Christian themes argues profound
conviction and reverence. He never, like so many of his con-
temporaries, attempted to secularise and turn them into mere
scenes of everyday life, but touches them on their loftiest and
most imaginative side. He is religious in the widest, truest
meaning of the word, in his recognition of the nobler elements
in humanity and the truth of high ideals. He was an incom-
parable interpreter of the Church’s teaching, because, while his
science enabled him to give convincing reality to her themes,
he emphasizes their symbolic and spiritual meaning. As
Donatello was before all the interpreter of the intellectual
ability, the energy and self-sufficiency of humanity, as Ghiberti
of its physical grace and charm, so was Luca of its spiritual
tendencies and aspirations. He was not, however, like Fra
Angelico, content with the expression of moral beauty only,
1 Pater, “The Renaissance,” London, 1877, p. 71.