David

When Donatello gave a “cultural” interpretation of classical models, he had consciously made dialectical juxtapositions of structures of intense realistic evidence with passages of marked, almost abstract classicising imitation. Such is the case of the head of this “David”, the still mask of an Antinous set within the complex play of chiaroscuro created by the petasus and the hair, and crowning the flashing articulation of the utterly lifelike body.