Exhibitions

Relief sculpture fascinates and perplexes. It hovers between simple decoration and full-scale pictorial illusion, and could be found on the surface of every kind of artefact in fifteenth-century Italy. This exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute examined the nature of relief at the beginning of the Renaissance period, at a time when the distinction between fine and decorative arts hardly applied. Works by Donatello (1386 - 1466) and his contemporaries were related to a wider material experience, as the show looked first at the contextual and historical range of the relief, and then at the viewer’s engagement with its subjects.

Depth of Field: the place of relief in the time of Donatello is the result of a unique collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum which has offered an unparalleled opportunity to borrow 40 works including The Ascension with Christ Giving the Keys to St Peter, the most important relief by Donatello in Britain from the museum’s rich collections of fine and decorative art. Curators from both institutions have worked on this exhibition which will reflect their different specialisms, and aims to reveal the continuities of the Renaissance with both the medieval and earlier ages.

In the Institute’s galleries, the exhibition opened with a wide-ranging introduction to the culture of relief, looking at the many places in which it could appear, highlighting some of the physical and conceptual reasons for its presence. It then moved on to focus on the theme of the Virgin and Child, a much loved subject, and offered the chance to compare works originally designed for very different places, by artists including Agostino di Duccio and Andrea della Robbia, as well as Donatello. Street Madonnas take their place alongside more precious and intimate icons, juxtaposing reliefs made for public or private devotion.

The final gallery focused on Donatello’s exceptional carving, The Ascension with Christ Giving the Keys to St Peter, offering the viewer who has now been acquainted with looking at reliefs the opportunity to consider one of the most puzzling and anomalous relief works in the history of art.