THE TORTURED LOOK OF GOD’S VOICE: EMOTIONAL ESSENCE IN THE

RENAISSANCE

Grayson Wise
A HI-3313-026: Art and Culture in Italy
Prof. Kirk Duclaux
August 03, 2021
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If there is one thing about religious art that can make one feel deeply connected to it and
dreadfully guilty at the same time, it is the infamous tortured look of God’s voice. The faces are
ridden with twisted emotion: despair, humility, and a mysterious wisdom. It seems as if they are
holding a certain knowledge that no one else besides God could ever understand. It is complex,
and it is an impressive feat when an artist can actually depict this look of deep despair and
torture. Experiencing art like this can be absolutely transcendent, but at the very least, the art
connects to us on a basic level. The connection we feel to these types of pieces is a result of the
Renaissance.
Before the Renaissance, there was more or less a formula to follow when producing
artworks, and they lacked the portrayal of genuine human emotion—such as agony, despair and
tragedy. It did not possess such raw and human qualities that truly captured the essence of human
thought and feeling. During the Renaissance, the revival of antiquity helped spark this movement
to creating more naturalistic and anatomically correct pieces.1 This also helps with the emotional
component to art because without one or the other, the flow is cut off. It is hard to produce an
emotionally compelling piece if the figure is stiffly painted or sculpted with no regard to the
humanness of their features. The artists that were able to find this connection and put it into their
work encapsulate what the Renaissance is all about. It is these artists’ work that is still held
above the rest and is used as an example to showcase the artistic achievement from the
Renaissance.
Donatello is one of these artists that successfully created figures that hold these vivid
emotions like agony, hope, or despair. This Renaissance artist helped pioneer emotional
development and portrayal in art through his various sculptures of people like Mary Magdalene
and St. John the Evangelist. They display an artistic exploration akin to the Renaissance ideas we
hold on such high standards, and Donatello was able to permanently change the stiff and
formulaic art of the past. The development of emotionality in the faces of figures in art is just
one sign of the high artistic achievement in the Renaissance. It showcases the shift away from
stagnant and lifeless forms that have no connection to the viewer at all. Many of the sculptures
from the Gothic period are quite distant from the viewer, and they lack the essence of a person

1
Sirén, Osvald. "The Importance of the Antique to Donatello," 438.
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that is so pivotal to understanding Renaissance art.2 There is nothing in those pieces that really
lets the viewer explore the artist’s narrative further.
For example, Arnolfo di Cambio’s sculpture of Pope Boniface VIII from 1245-1302 has
virtually no emotion at all. His body is quite stiff, and the anatomy is nowhere near naturalistic.
For a human sculpture, he is extremely distant and removed from human life. As a result of this,
there is no connectivity to the viewer, and the piece is less successful in terms of emotionality
and story. It lacks the distinctive airy, lifelike, and natural essence found in Renaissance art.
There is a certain humanness to these divine and almost supernatural figures when an artist
sculpts them with the intention of creating a human connection. Art as a whole starts to become a
personal and real emotional experience for the viewer.3 The barrier between art and the viewer is
gone, and that is the result of this new visual language being created in the Renaissance. This
allows the artist, Donatello in this case, to expand the narrative and create divinely tortured
figures like St. John the Evangelist or Mary Magdalene that connect with the viewer both in
psychologically and aesthetically ways.
In terms of aesthetics, the advancement in sculptural anatomy and naturalism in the
Renaissance is hard to ignore. The Renaissance is a time of revitalizing and reimagining
sculptures and art objects from antiquity. It is artistic innovation brought from the “beginning” of
high Western culture and art.4 The desire to improve the anatomy of figures in art and create
more naturalistic depictions directly correlates to the psychological and emotional exploration in
the Renaissance. There cannot be one without the other, or the essence is gone. Donatello’s work
shows his understanding of this phenomenon, and it is clear that he continued to delve into the
importance of capturing the essence in his art. In two of the Donatello sculptures from the Museo
dell’Opera del Duomo, St. John the Evangelist and the Penitent Magdalene, the viewer can see
Donatello’s progress and exploration into human emotion and the psyche.
The sculpture of St. John the Evangelist created in 1416 is a fantastic example of
Donatello’s deep dive into the psyche to get his audience to relate and connect with his figures.
In other words, Donatello uses his artistic skill to create a representation of the voice of God
through one of the Gospel writers, St. John the Evangelist. He effectively shows the viewer St.
2
Summers, David. ""ARIA II": The Union of Image and Artist as an Aesthetic Ideal in Renaissance Art." Artibus Et
Historiae 10, no. 20 (1989): 15-31. Accessed August 2, 2021. doi:10.2307/1483351, 18.
3
Summers, ""ARIA II": The Union of Image and Artist as an Aesthetic Ideal in Renaissance Art,” 27.
4
Sirén, Osvald. "The Importance of the Antique to Donatello." American Journal of Archaeology 18, no. 4 (1914):
438-61. Accessed August 2, 2021. doi:10.2307/497287, 438.
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John the Evangelist from a more realistic perspective that illuminates the darkness that the
viewer can be delivered from with help from God.5 St. John is like a beacon of hope in this case
because he has been given this gift of God’s word to deliver to the people. Yet, there is a more
complex and twisted sort of emotion to him. It is a brief, frozen moment in time that just barely
lets us glimpse into the hardships St. John the Evangelist must face as a direct messenger of God.
St. John looks composed and strong, but it is obvious there is something on his mind. His
hands are heavy and relaxed on his robes with one resting on a book—sign of his humanity. His
face is well articulated in a very natural and raw manner. His brows are furrowed and he looks
into the distance. St. John is in a seated contrapposto, which helps aid this naturalistic feel to him
as well as giving him a more connective, human appearance. It is subtle, but it is there. He also
looks prepared to write the word of God and endure whatever hardships it may cause him.
Donatello captures a miniscule component of St. John, but it is clear that this is a man who has a
resolve so strong that he is willing to bear the burden of being a vessel of God’s word. This
sculpture is a testament to the new developments happening in the Renaissance—emotion and
naturalism, and Donatello’s St. John the Evangelist is just the beginning of this artistic endeavor.
The Penitent Magdalene from the 1460s is the bread and butter of the Donatello’s
emotional exploration, and she can even be seen as a pinnacle of emotionality in Renaissance art.
She is the epitome of someone who is tortured by the voice of God, and Donatello is able to
capture the essence of human suffering and hope through this sculpture. Mary Magdalene is a
figure of hope in many ways because she is a woman who spent her life working towards
salvation with little to nothing else other than God’s grace and voice leading her.6 That being
said, Donatello’s Penitent Magdalene is an extremely relevant and important piece for the time it
was created. Especially in Renaissance Florence, the Franciscan and Dominican orders took
quite a significant liking to Mary Magdalene and what she could represent for people and their
own sinful, Godless actions.7 She is the ultimate image of a sinner who has been saved by God,
and as described in the Golden Legend, Mary Magdalene spent a 30-year period fasting and
repenting for her sins in a cave with no food.8 This is quite an impossible task for any normal

5
Tarr, Roger. "Brunelleschi and Donatello: Placement and Meaning in Sculpture." Artibus Et Historiae 16, no. 32
(1995): 101-40. Accessed August 2, 2021. doi:10.2307/1483565, 110.
6
Dunkelman, Martha Levine. "Donatello's Mary Magdalen: A Model of Courage and Survival." Woman's Art
Journal 26, no. 2 (2005): 10-13. Accessed August 2, 2021. doi:10.2307/3598092, 10.
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid.
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person, but because of Mary Magdalene’s perseverance to complete her penance to God, she is
able to succeed.
With only God’s voice and his divinity keeping her alive, Donatello sculpts the Penitent
Magdalene to very clearly show this. Her body is emaciated but with exquisitely carved, chiseled
features that suggest the former beauty of this woman. Her long, draping hair acts as the only
covering for her body, and it adds tremendously to this idea of her surviving off of purely God’s
will and her faith. Mary Magdalene’s eyes are set deeply into her hollow face, and her mouth
stays barely parted. She looks completely tortured and barely able to breathe properly. The
viewer can openly see the severity of this woman’s health situation, but her hands suggest that
she will continue to do her duty to God. Mary Magdalene is in the process of praying, as her
hands are on the verge of touching one another. With her face full of agony and a body on the
brink of death, she still perseveres. She exudes an aura that is hard to ignore, and it feels like a
real experience, as if the viewer is a part of this seemingly endless suffering she must face.
Donatello shows a tender and very personal moment completely frozen in time, and it makes it
impossible for the viewer to just look away without feeling anything at all.
Of course, the emotional connection one feels with these two pieces is up to the viewer
themselves. However, it is undeniable that one can look at the work of Donatello and not feel
anything at all, and that is how he encapsulates much of the Renaissance with his work. This is a
time of artistic exploration into the natural qualities of the metaphysical. Pieces could become
much more emotionally awakening and human—much more able of capturing the essence of a
person. The Renaissance was less about representing figures with power and otherworldly
qualities, and instead, it was a time to make art relatable. Human suffering and hardship is as
relatable as it can be if an artist is seeking to connect on a deeper, very personal level with the
viewer. Artists like Donatello can do this very well, and they take these highly spiritual and holy
figures and make them human.9
This is not to say art from the Gothic period and beforehand was not successful or
important, but it does lack the same raw human emotion that Renaissance art possesses. Art
cannot be innovative without looking into the past and building upon it. The Renaissance has a
strong foundation in the work from antiquity, but it takes those classical and old ideas to create

9
Verdon, Timothy. Sculpture in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces from Florence Cathedral;.
Museum of Biblical Art, 2015, 55.
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something fresh and new. It is the artistic journey to emotionality that permeated slowly
throughout the Renaissance that makes its art more connective and human. There is no “tortured
look of God” without the Renaissance, and more specifically, Donatello. He made art and
religion a more personal and connective experience, just by naturalizing body language and
adding depth to the narrative through the most telling human thing of all: the face.
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Arnolfo di Cambio, Pope Boniface VIII, 1296.

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Donatello, St. John the Evangelist, 1416.

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Donatello, Penitent Magdalene, 1460s.

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References

Arnolfo Di Cambio. Pope Boniface VIII. Accessed August 3, 2021.

https://jstor.org/stable/community.14706863.

Donatello, Florentine, 1386-1466. St. John the Evangelist. Accessed August 3, 2021.

https://jstor.org/stable/community.18121023.

Donatello. Penitent Magdalene. Accessed August 3, 2021.

https://jstor.org/stable/community.14495566.

Dunkelman, Martha Levine. "Donatello's Mary Magdalen: A Model of Courage and Survival."
Woman's Art Journal 26, no. 2 (2005): 10-13. Accessed August 2, 2021.
doi:10.2307/3598092. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3598092.

Sirén, Osvald. "The Importance of the Antique to Donatello." American Journal of Archaeology
18, no. 4 (1914): 438-61. Accessed August 2, 2021. doi:10.2307/497287.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/497287?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents.

Summers, David. ""ARIA II": The Union of Image and Artist as an Aesthetic Ideal in
Renaissance Art." Artibus Et Historiae 10, no. 20 (1989): 15-31. Accessed August 2,
2021. doi:10.2307/1483351. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1483351.

Tarr, Roger. "Brunelleschi and Donatello: Placement and Meaning in Sculpture." Artibus Et
Historiae 16, no. 32 (1995): 101-40. Accessed August 2, 2021. doi:10.2307/1483565.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1483565.　

Verdon, Timothy. Sculpture in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces from Florence
Cathedral;. Museum of Biblical Art, 2015.
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dmzolli/files/zolli_catalogue_essay_2015.pdf.