ceases to be true, as nobody knew better than Barye, the greatest of
the "realists." The Zuccone can be more fittingly described in
Bocchi's words. It is the creation of a verist, of a naturalist,
founded on a clear and intimate perception of nature. Donatello was
pledged to no system, and his only canon, if such existed, was the
canon of observation matured by technical ability. We have no reason
to suppose that Donatello claimed to be a deep thinker. He did not
spend his time, like Michael Angelo, in devising theories to explain
the realms of art. He was without analytical pedantry, and, like his
character, his work was naive and direct. Nor was he absorbed by
appreciation of "beauty," abstract or concrete. If he saw a man with a
humped back or a short leg he would have been prepared to make his
portrait, assuming that the entity was not in conflict with the
subject in hand. Hence the Zuccone. Its mesmeric ugliness is the
effect of Donatello's gothic creed, and it well shows how Donatello,
who from his earliest period was opposed to the conventions of the
Pisan school, took the lead among those who founded their art upon the
observation of nature. A later critic, shrewd and now much neglected,
said that Titian "contented himself with pure necessity, which is the
simple imitation of nature."[24] One could not say quite so much of
Donatello, in whom, curiously enough, the love of nature was limited
to its human aspect. He seems to have been impervious to outdoor
nature, to the world of plants and birds and beasts. Ghiberti, his
contemporary, was a profound student of natural life in all its forms,
and the famous bronze doors of the Baptistery are peopled with the
most fanciful products of his observation. "I strove to imitate nature
to the utmost degree," he says in his commentary.[25] Thus Ghiberti
makes a bunch of grapes, and wanting a second bunch as _pendant_, he
takes care to make it of a different species. The variety and richness
of his fruit and flower decoration are extraordinary and, if possible,
even more praiseworthy than the dainty garlands of the Della Robbia.
With Donatello all is different. He took no pleasure in enriching his
sculpture in this way. The Angel of the Annunciation carries no lily;
when in the Tabernacle of St. Peter's he had to decorate a pilaster he
made lilies, but stiff and unreal. His trees in the landscape
backgrounds of the Charge to Peter and the Release of Princess Sabra
by St. Geo