{"id":8130,"date":"2019-12-20T16:18:08","date_gmt":"2019-12-20T15:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.galleriabazzanti.it\/donatello-putto-scultura\/"},"modified":"2019-12-24T10:58:53","modified_gmt":"2019-12-24T09:58:53","slug":"donatello-putti-scultura","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.galleriabazzanti.it\/en\/donatello-putti-scultura\/","title":{"rendered":"Donatello and the putti in the sculpture – Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"
[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1576575671002{padding-top: 300px !important;padding-bottom: 300px !important;background-image: url(https:\/\/www.galleriabazzanti.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/blog-donatello-putti-p1-00-sfondo-1.jpeg?id=8014) !important;}”][vc_column][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row”][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Donatello and the putti in the sculptures – Part I” font_container=”tag:h1|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”titolo-articolo”][vc_custom_heading text=”The Putti in history” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”titolo-articolo”][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text el_class=”corsivo-blu”]<\/p>\n
In the history of Western art the ancestor of the Renaissance “putto” appears in Greece in the form of the young Eros, god of sexual love and desire, but also a divine principle that pushes towards beauty. He is the son of Aphrodite and Ares. It is already mentioned in the 8th century BC from Hesiod in “Theogony”; Euripides, in the fifth century BC, in “Medea” describes him as a creative and procreative force with the aspect of a beautiful and shining youth with golden wings. In addition to the wings it has the attributes as the bow and the arrows with which it pierces the soul and heart of humans, provoking desire.<\/p>\n
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In the Roman Pantheon it becomes the god called Amor or Cupidus with the same attributes of Eros, sometimes it also has a torch, a marriage symbol. Apuleius in the Golden Donkey (2nd century AC) still describes him as a beautiful winged young man.<\/p>\n
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A naked and winged young man who extinguishes a torch on the dying man\u2019s chest is, in some Roman sarcophagi, the spirit of death (Roman sarcophagus with the myth of Prometheus, Prince Cammillo Panphili collection, from: Admiranda Romnarum Antiquitatum, Roma 1691).<\/p>\n
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But over the years the Eros-Cupid have been rejuvenated, not only, but in Hellenistic and Roman art there is also a swarm of Cupids that keep company to the Gods and that go to decorate architectural parts and sarcophagi, Pompeian frescoes, gems and seals, with or without wings. We are approaching the putto model that will be resumed at the beginning of the ‘400.<\/p>\n
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The bronze of Eros Dormiente from the 2nd century BC (Metropolitan Museum of art in New York) shows the typology that inspired the Renaissance sculptors: the child is very young, plump, with small wings of feathers, with curly and tousled hair.<\/p>\n
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Another model for the artists of the 15th century was also the marble sculpture of the 2nd century BC, now in the Uffizi Gallery, which was in the collections of Lorenzo il Magnifico.<\/p>\n
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