Nanni di Banco was a Italian sculptor from Florence. Nanni sculpted the group called Quattro Santi Coronati for his own guild, the Arte dei Maestri di Pietra and Legname (Guild of the Stone and Woodcutters). The life-size figures arranged in a semi-circle represent Claudius, Castor, Symphorian and Nicostratus, four Christian sculptors who refused to execute a statue of Aesculapius for the Emperor Diocletian; they were confused with Christian soldiers, were martyred for not venerating the Emperor and were worshipped as the Quattro Coronati.
The Quattro Coronati (Four Crowned Saints; c. 1411-13) is considered his masterpiece. The group of figures is bound together by the spatial relation of each to the other and by a kind of mute conversation in which they all seem to be engaged.
One can find another kind of sculpture that represents a part of history, in this case, four presidents. The faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln look down from their stone heights and remind everyone that even the impossible is possible.
Mt. Rushmore National Memorial is a huge mountain sculpture of four US Presidents, located near Keystone, in the Black Hills of South Dakota. These four Presidents were chosen to represent the founding, growth and preservation of the United States. The work was designed by the sculptor John Gutzon Borglum. Bad weather and a lack of funding slowed work; although it took 14 years to finish the project, work was done for only about 6 of those years.
Two pieces have big dimensions to express the importance at the period of construction; both represent important people for his countries. Each character has a natural and pensive expression of humility and they create a union sense together. The sculptures are located on the top of the viewer, telling the witness the best way to admire the great work. One important factor is the perception of one in the work; both show an added value on the position they are and the elements that surround them. For example, the Mount Rushmore is located on the top where clarify people can see a pyramid corner and nothing surround it; the Quattro Coronati, also has in the top a triangle, this is the visual tension point and this help to the right visual tour for the sculpture. At the end, this is a concentration point of viewer’s attention.
These monument's dimensions were determinate by the importance to civilization of the events commemorated, the constructive and dramatic moments or crises in our amazing history.
With Donatello and Ghiberti, Nanni di Banco is one of the artists responsible for the introduction of a new, fully realistic, and the individual style of expression of the sculpture, where a new generation monumental and heroic sculpture came into existence.
