The Madonna of the Clouds: The Truth in Sculpture

• In Event: Donatello

Abstract

She is, in some ways, “of” the clouds, as is the Christ child. Caught in the impossible depth of shallow relief, Mary and Jesus huddle, attended to by quasi-corporeal angelic figures amidst marble-like clouds, and nebulous stone. Looking at the marble relief sculpture called the Madonna of the Clouds—now in Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and ascribed to Donatello—I aim to pick up on questions already asked of clouds in Renaissance art, which emphasize them as sites for the exercise of fantasia, for musings on representation, and as theologically-freighted stages. These ideas inform my understanding of the Madonna of the Clouds, a relief that represents material incarnation in a way that posits a certain truth in sculpture.

Author

• Adrian Randolph, Northwestern University