ch is the impression conveyed by Niccolo in the
cast. In the Bargello the colouring modifies what the form itself was
meant to suggest. The smallest error of a paint-brush, the slightest
deepening of a pigment, are quite sufficient to make radical
alterations in the sentiment of a statue. When applied to plastic art,
colour is potent enough to change the essential purpose of the
sculptor. The chief reason why the terra-cotta bust of St. John at
Berlin looks flippant and fastidious is, that the painter was
indiscreet in drawing the eyebrows and lips: owing to his
carelessness, they do not coincide with the features indicated by the
modeller, and the entire character of the boy is consequently changed.
The question of polychromacy in Donatello's sculpture is of great
importance, and requires some notice. It is no longer denied that
classical statues were frequently coloured. The Parthenon frieze and
many celebrated monuments of antiquity were picked out with colour.
Others received some kind of polish, _circumlitio_,--like the dark
varnish which is on the face of the Coscia effigy. Again, the use
of ivory, precious stones, and metal was common. The lips and eyeballs
were frequently overlaid by thin slabs of silver.[160] The origin of
polychromacy, doubtless, dates back to the most remote ages. It was
first needed to conceal imperfections, and to supply what the carver
felt his inability to render. It connotes insufficiency in the form.
The sculptor, of all people, ought to be able to see colour in the
uncoloured stone: he ought to realise its warmth, texture and shades.
Nobody has any right to complain that a statue is uncoloured: the
substance and quality of the marble is in itself pleasing, but
relative truth is all that is required in a portrait-bust. If one
wants to know the colour of a man's eye, or the precise tint of his
complexion, the painter's art should be invoked, but only where its
gradations and subtleties can be fully rendered--on the canvas.
Polychromacy is a mixture of two arts: it is one art trying to steal a
march upon another art by producing illusion. That is why the
pantaloon paints his face, and why the audience laughs: the spirit
which tolerates painted statues ends by adorning them with necklaces.
Donatello, whose sense of light and shade was acutely developed, least
required the adventitious aid of colour. Polychromacy was to a certain
extent justified on terra-cotta, to soften the toneless colour