Why Donatello’s famoly androgyno sculpture of “David” should be tepreted as a reflectn of gay culture Renaissance Florence." data-reactroot="
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DONATELLA VERSACE HAS LONG BEEN A GAY IN. NOW IT’S OFFICIAL.
The sculptor lived at a time when you uld be burned at the stake for homosexualy. Yet, as an exhibn of his work hs London, the evince that he was openly gay seems creasgly nvcg * donatello gay *
It pats Donatello as an openly gay artist and his ma employer, Cosimo, as havg a relaxed, supportive unrstandg of his sexualy, spe livg a medieval Christian age when you uld be burned at the stake for “sodomy” the V&A prepar to unveil an exhibn of Donatello, this tale suggts he is an artist who n speak directly to our time. For means Donatello, who was born cir 1386 and died 1466, was the first artist history to exprs a gay or queer is all the more signifint as Donatello created, for Cosimo, the first lifized statue of a male nu erected anywhere Europe sce pagan antiquy. He shudred at the ia of David as a gay artwork, scribg as “aberrant nonsense” and claimg such theori “left a ltle trail of slime on a great work of art.
But the more you fd out about the man who wrote this story, Angelo Poliziano, the more likely is he told the pla, hont tth about the gay sculptor and his wealthy a pated the 1480s the church of Santa Tra, Florence, Poliziano gravely pos wh long hair, leadg a group of boys to see their powerful father.
It may be temptg to tegorize Donatello as gay, queer, or homosexual, addg him to a pantheon spirg the next LGBTQ+ generatn to e out. Although the level of homoeroticism vari between sculptur, what do not is the unorthodoxy of the body’s pictn.
DONATELLO - GAYS, CAREER AND CHILDHOOD
Is this chimeril statue an allegory of fiantly victor homoerotic sire? It is unclear whether Sat Sebastian as the opprsed youth was a d gay mast for Donatello and his quattrocento dience.
Not until the 19th century do homoerotic nuendo about the sat beg to surface several wrten sourc. Donatello’s famo bronze statue of David Victor at the Bargello is unambiguoly homoerotic. Ironilly, the gay curator and scholar John Pope-Hennsy dismissed their arguments.