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Marble Cantoria By Luca Della Robbia
Luca Della Robbia
Born sometime in 1400, Luca della Robbia began his life at the beginning of the Renaissance. Being born is Florence and living there for most of his life allowed him to achieve his goal of being a Renaissance artist. During his adolescence, Luca came into contact with some of the most famous Renaissance artists of today. For example he worked with Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi while studying the arts. One of his first projects was the Cantoria, which means singing gallery. For this particular project, Luca was joined by, Donatello who also did a Cantoria. Of the two, most scholars would say that Luca’s turned out to be more beautiful than Donatello’s. Soon after this feat, he developed the terracotta roundels often seen in churches today because of their capacity to endure hardships. Terracotta is basically a glazed pottery that survives in many conditions and is usually blue. Before his death in 1482, Luca developed a sculpture studio for his family. This brought about the teaching of art to his nephew, Andrea della Robbia and his grandnephew, Luca della Robbia. During the course of his life, Luca della Robbia created sculpture that has lasted until today and created some new ways of art that helped shape the Renaissance.
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The Cantoria
Originally commissioned in 1431, the marble Cantoria was finished in the year 1438. Shortly after Luca Della Robbia was commissioned in that year, Donatello was commissioned to create a counterpart to Robbia’s Cantoria. Robbia's was considered more balanced than that of Donatello's. The sculpture itself was originally constructed in the Sacristy of the Masses; otherwise known as the new Sacristy. Donatello’s counterpart was built in the “old” Sacristy. Both of the art pieces were rebuilt in the Duomo Museum in Florence. Being one of Luca’s works the Cantoria can still be seen today in the museum located near the church due to the marble from which it was made. The piece itself is 17 feet in length and often had music concerts performed on it while it was still in the church. Although the panels are now separated, people are still able to see this incredible piece of art today.
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Art Analysis of the Artpiece
The Cantoria was created at the beginning of the Renaissance as well as the beginning of its artists’ career. Because it was based on the 150th Psalm, the majority of the piece is of singing children such the name cantoria. The first couple of panels show that Luca was experimenting and trying to get the right faces of the children to symbolize the 150th psalm to the best extent. Realism is apparent in the piece throughout especially in the faces of the children. No two children look exactly the same. For example the trumpeters are often seen with their cheeks puffed out in the act of blowing and one singer in the first panel actually has his eyebrows furrowed in frustration2. Much of this artpiece is very expressive and has perspective. For example much of the piece looks three dimentional with actual parts of panels actually sticking out from the piece. This may also be known as a relief, of which seems to be so deeply into the material when in actuality it is not. The piece itself is very balanced with no particular piece standing out from the rest. In addition to being balanced, many of the panels themselves are symmetrical with the figures looking in the same direction or the whole panel cased around one particular element such as a piece of music or one particular person in the middle1. Going back to the idea of the Renaissance being a rebirth, much of the piece itself features the children as being "perfect" as well as wearing Romanesque clothing. The children themselves also portray the full face as being plump and healthy. Religion is still apparent thorughout the Renaissance and also in the this piece because of its Psalm inscribed on the sides.
END NOTES
1"Robbia, Della." Encyclopedia or Italian Renaissance and Mannerist Art. V. 2. 2000, 1349-1352.
2"Italy and the Renaissance." Great Courses. (filmstrip).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
"Luca Della Robbia" http://www.answers.com/topic/luca-della-robbia
"Robbia Luca Della." Wikisource. 16 October 2005. Wikimedia Foundation. 20 January 2007. <http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_New_Student's_Reference_Work/4-0126>
http://www3.baylor.edu/christianethics/SingingOurLivesArtCantoria.pdf title singing our lives
http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/biographies/MainBiographies/R/RobbiaL/robbia.htm)
Robbia, Italian family of artists