Donatello's John the Baptist at Venice and Mary Magdalene at Florence Opera del Duomo

Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi, Donatello, was born in 1386 Florence and died there in 1466. He was gifted with an “inner power and dynamism which he used to give…life-like expression to the changing depictions of man…”Rolf C. Wirtz.His numerous remarkable works in statue and relief are all over Florence and Padua, and some in Siena. His two great wooden sculptures, John the Baptist, now at Santa Maria die Frari in Venice, and Mary Magdalene, now at the Opera del Duomo in Florence, are two of the best examples of his talent for life-like expression.

Here he held nothing back from the realism. The Baptist, patron saint of Florence, was made in 1438, in polychrome, “a frail, exhausted figure that unsparingly presents us with a visual reminder of the difficulties of human existence. This is a Baptist like no other. My first impression was that the saint was utterly puzzled and baffled over something.He is preaching, his mouth open, his right hand gesticulating. His fur cloak, and long beard and hair testify to his years in the desert.

The Magdalene, also polychrome, is even more shocking than John, made late in the artist’s life, 1453-1455. Jesus forgave Mary for her former life as a prostitute at the house of Simon the Pharisee.The Legenda Aurea gives us her subsequent fate, the Gospel narration notwithstanding. For thirty years she lived as a hermit in southern France, living a life of remorse and repentance. Once beautiful, we see her here worn and weary and wrapped only in her hair. She has completely withdrawn from the world.