Table of contents:
- About the master
- Giotto di Bondone's secret of success
- Giotto's "box"
- Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi
Video: What symbols did the Italian artist Giotto hide on his "Box"
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Giotto di Bondone better known as Giotto was an Italian painter and architect from Florence. He is considered to be the first in a series of great artists who have made a significant contribution to the Italian Renaissance. There are amazing creations in the work of Giotto di Bondone that adorn … the "box". What is this box?
About the master
Giotto di Bondone is best described by biographers and historians. Giotto's contemporary, the Florentine chronicler and historian Giovanni Villani, wrote that “Giotto was the most sovereign master of painting in his time, who painted all his characters and their poses in accordance with nature. And he also received wages for his talent and excellence from the authorities of Florence (an unprecedented rarity for the XIV century).
A later biographer of the 16th century, Giorgio Vasari, says about him:. Even Dante, he was recognized as the leading artist of his time. Since then, artists, writers and scholars have characterized his style and his legacy with two main features: heightened naturalism in the representation of the human figure and natural naturalness.
Cimabue is considered the main mentor and teacher of Giotto. It was he who taught the artist the art of painting. According to Dante, Giotto's reputation eclipsed that of Cimabue, despite the fact that Cimabue was also considered a revolutionary artist at the time. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Giotto surpassed his teacher. Let's compare two works by Cimabue and his student Giotto. Yes, the Cimabue painting is beautiful. The clothes on his Mother of God shine with golden lines. Cimabue uses chrysography here (the art of painting with gold or gold paints (ink). But what do we see in Giotto's work? The most important difference is three-dimensionality and volume. His figures have a rounded sculptural shape and this is undoubtedly the perfection of craftsmanship! Giotto's significance for the Renaissance is possible to appreciate the fact that the great transformers of art - Masaccio, Raphael, Michelangelo - they all learned from Giotto and partially based their style on the heritage of the master.
Giotto di Bondone's secret of success
Why is Giotto considered the leading master of the Renaissance? First, his art is distinguished by clear, serious and simple solutions in the representation of space and volume, the structure and strength of three-dimensional forms, and, most importantly, in the depiction of the human figure. Secondly, he was able to brilliantly embody any episode from the sacred plot, using compositional means unusual for his time and transferring an emotional psychological effect through paint. His expressions of many scenes of dramatic storytelling were fundamental. And subsequently they, of course, were taken over and transformed into many areas, but they were never surpassed.
The secret of Giotto's success can be considered the fact that he paid close attention to the foundations of the human form, as well as to the psychological perception of a person of certain events from the scriptures. Of course, Giotto was a subtle psychologist.
What is also important, Giotto was the first to introduce action into art, depicting not peace, but movement. The place of individual solemn figures was taken by multi-figure paintings. Previously, it was only about the image of rest. Now it was necessary to reproduce the figures lying, crumpled, flying in the air. Previously, the expression on their faces was monotonously stern, then it became meek and kind. With such canonical rules, Giotto could not do anything. It was necessary to create new rules. And Giotto coped with this task masterfully. Giotto's painting is not a decorative ornament, but a kind of picture letter, telling the illiterate about the history of the doctrine.
Giotto's "box"
There is a charming town of Padua in the Italian region of Veneto. Its main attraction is the tiny church. It looks very much like a box! Therefore, the name "Giotto's box" was assigned to it. Capella del Arena or Scrovegni Chapel - under these names it entered the history of world art, and it is decorated with the great creations of the Italian genius master - Giotto di Bondlne - the largest cycle of 37 frescoes made in 1305.
The chapel is a very simple architectural building: a rectangular hall with a vaulted dome, an elegant Gothic window with a triple lancet on the façade, tall narrow windows on the south wall, and a polygonal apse. It is thanks to such a laconic, small and simple form that the chapel is called a casket. The chapel is decorated with a cycle of three themes with frescoes: - episodes from the life of Joachim and Anna (1-6), - episodes from the life of the Virgin Mary (7-13), - episodes telling about the life and death of Christ. The lower panels of the frescoes illustrate allegorical vices and virtue.
Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi
Another great creation that is today a UNESCO heritage. In 1230, two years after the death of St. Francis, it was decided to build a church in his memory. Giotto was commissioned to paint the walls of the church, who described the life of the saint with all its miraculous events in epic detail. It was with these works that Giotto di Bondone became famous. The frescoes are considered one of the supreme masterpieces of the early Renaissance. And this is only a small part of Giotto's legacy, which turned Italian painting upside down.
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