g bright and
cheerful. He is no mystic; he differs fundamentally from the gloomy
ascetic and the haggard suffering figures in Siena and Berlin. So far
from being morose in appearance, clad in raiment of camel's hair, fed
upon locusts and wild honey, and summoning the land of Judaea to
repent, we have a vigorous young Tuscan, well dressed and well fed,
standing in an easy and graceful attitude and not without a tinge of
pride in the handsome countenance. In short, the statue is by no means
typical of the Saint. It would more aptly represent some romantic
knight of chivalry, a Victor, a Maurice--even a St. George. It
competes with Donatello's own version of St. George. In all essentials
they are alike, and the actual figures are identical in gesture and
pose, disregarding shield and armour in one case, scroll and drapery
in the other. The two figures are so analogous, that as studies from
the nude they would be almost indistinguishable. They differ in this:
that the Saint on the Campanile is John the Baptist merely because we
are told so, while the figure made for Or San Michele is inevitably
the soldier saint of Christendom. It must not be inferred that the
success of plastic, skill less that of pictorial, art depends upon the
accuracy or vividness with which the presentment "tells its story."
Under such a criterion the most popular work of art would necessarily
bear the palm of supremacy. But there should be some relation between
the statue and the subject-matter. Nobody knew this better than
Donatello: he seldom incurred the criticism directed against Myron the
sculptor--_Animi sensus non expressisse videtur_.[14] The occasional
error, such as that just noticed, or when he gives Goliath the head of
a mild old gentleman,[15] merely throws into greater prominence the
usual harmony between his conception and its embodiment. The task of
making prophets was far from simple. Their various personalities,
little known in our time, were conjectural in his day: neither would
the conventional scroll of the prophet do more than give a generic
indication of the kind of person represented. Donatello, however, made
a series of figures from which the [Greek: ethos] of the prophets
emanates with unequalled force.

[Footnote 14: Pliny, xxxiv. 19, 3.]

[Footnote 15: Bargello David.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Alinari_

JEREMIAH

CAMPANILE, FLORENCE]

[Sidenote: Jeremiah and the Canon of Art.]