Giotto
Giotto di Bondone | |
---|---|
Born | Giotto di Bondone c. 1267 |
Died | January 8, 1337 Florence, Republic of Florence | (aged 69–70)
Nationality | Italian |
Known for | Painting, fresco, architecture |
Notable work | Scrovegni Chapel frescoes, Campanile |
Movement |
Giotto di Bondone (Italian pronunciation:
Giotto's masterwork is the decoration of the Scrovegni Chapel, in Padua, also known as the Arena Chapel, which was completed around 1305. The fresco cycle depicts the Life of the Virgin and the Life of Christ. It is regarded as one of the supreme masterpieces of the Early Renaissance.[10]
The fact that Giotto painted the Arena Chapel and that he was chosen by the Commune of Florence in 1334 to design the new campanile (bell tower) of the Florence Cathedral are among the few certainties about his life. Almost every other aspect of it is subject to controversy: his birth date, his birthplace, his appearance, his apprenticeship, the order in which he created his works, whether he painted the famous frescoes in the Upper Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi, and his burial place.
Early life and career
Tradition says that Giotto was born in a farmhouse, perhaps at Colle di Romagnano or Romignano.
In his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects Vasari states that Giotto was a shepherd boy, a merry and intelligent child who was loved by all who knew him. The great Florentine painter Cimabue discovered Giotto drawing pictures of his sheep on a rock. They were so lifelike that Cimabue approached Giotto and asked if he could take him on as an apprentice.[9] Cimabue was one of the two most highly renowned painters of Tuscany, the other being Duccio, who worked mainly in Siena. Vasari recounts a number of such stories about Giotto's skill as a young artist. He tells of one occasion when Cimabue was absent from the workshop, and Giotto painted a remarkably lifelike fly on a face in a painting of Cimabue. When Cimabue returned, he tried several times to brush the fly off.[13] Many scholars today are uncertain about Giotto's training and consider Vasari's account that he was Cimabue's pupil a legend; they cite earlier sources that suggest that Giotto was not Cimabue's pupil.[14] The story about the fly is also suspect because it parallels Pliny the Elder's anecdote about Zeuxis painting grapes so lifelike that birds tried to peck at them.[15]
Vasari also relates that when Pope Benedict XI sent a messenger to Giotto, asking him to send a drawing to demonstrate his skill, Giotto drew a red circle so perfect that it seemed as though it was drawn using a pair of compasses and instructed the messenger to send it to the Pope.[16] The messenger departed ill-pleased, believing that he had been made a fool of. The messenger brought other artists' drawings back to the Pope in addition to Giotto's. When the messenger related how he had made the circle without moving his arm and without the aid of compasses the Pope and his courtiers were amazed at how Giotto's skill greatly surpassed all of his contemporaries.[9]
Around 1290 Giotto married Ricevuta di Lapo del Pela (known as 'Ciuta'), the daughter of Lapo del Pela of Florence. The marriage produced four daughters and four sons, one of whom, Francesco, became a painter.[1][17] Giotto worked in Rome in 1297–1300, but few traces of his presence there remain today. By 1301, Giotto owned a house in Florence, and when he was not traveling, he would return there and live in comfort with his family. By the early 1300s, he had multiple painting commissions in Florence.[16] The
Cimabue went to
The authorship of a large number of panel paintings ascribed to Giotto by Vasari, among others, is as broadly disputed as the Assisi frescoes.[19] According to Vasari, Giotto's earliest works were for the Dominicans at Santa Maria Novella. They include a fresco of The Annunciation and an enormous suspended Crucifix, which is about 5 metres (16 feet) high.[9] It has been dated to about 1290 and is thought to be contemporary with the Assisi frescoes.[20] Earlier attributed works are the San Giorgio alla Costa Madonna and Child, now in the Diocesan Museum of Santo Stefano al Ponte, Florence, and the signed panel of the Stigmatization of St. Francis housed in the Louvre.
An early biographical source, Riccobaldo of Ferrara, mentions that Giotto painted at Assisi but does not specify the St Francis Cycle: "What kind of art [Giotto] made is testified to by works done by him in the Franciscan churches at Assisi, Rimini, Padua..."[21] Since the idea was put forward by the German art historian Friedrich Rintelen in 1912,[22] many scholars have expressed doubt that Giotto was the author of the Upper Church frescoes. Without documentation, arguments on the attribution have relied upon connoisseurship, a notoriously unreliable "science",[23] but technical examinations and comparisons of the workshop painting processes at Assisi and Padua in 2002 have provided strong evidence that Giotto did not paint the St. Francis Cycle.[24] There are many differences between it and the Arena Chapel frescoes that are difficult to account for within the stylistic development of an individual artist. It is now generally accepted that four different hands are identifiable in the Assisi St. Francis frescoes and that they came from Rome. If this is the case, Giotto's frescoes at Padua owe much to the naturalism of the painters.[1]
Giotto's fame as a painter spread. He was called to work in Padua and also in Rimini, where there remains only a Crucifix painted before 1309 and conserved in the Church of St. Francis.[9] It influenced the rise of the Riminese school of Giovanni and Pietro da Rimini. According to documents of 1301 and 1304, Giotto by this time possessed large estates in Florence, and it is probable that he was already leading a large workshop and receiving commissions from throughout Italy.[1]
Scrovegni Chapel
Around 1305, Giotto executed his most influential work, the interior frescoes of the
The theme of the decoration is
Vasari, drawing on a description by
Sequence
The cycle is divided into 37 scenes, arranged around the lateral walls in three tiers, starting in the upper register with the story of
Much of the blue in the frescoes has been worn away by time. The expense of the
Style
Giotto's style drew on the solid and classicizing sculpture of Arnolfo di Cambio. Unlike those by Cimabue and Duccio, Giotto's figures are not stylized or elongated and do not follow Byzantine models. They are solidly three-dimensional, have faces and gestures that are based on close observation, and are clothed, not in swirling formalized drapery, but in garments that hang naturally and have form and weight. He also took bold steps in foreshortening and having characters face inwards, with their backs towards the observer, creating the illusion of space. The figures occupy compressed settings with naturalistic elements, often using forced perspective devices so that they resemble stage sets. This similarity is increased by Giotto's careful arrangement of the figures in such a way that the viewer appears to have a particular place and even an involvement in many of the scenes. That can be seen most markedly in the arrangement of the figures in the Mocking of Christ and Lamentation in which the viewer is bidden by the composition to become mocker in one and mourner in the other.
Giotto's depiction of the human face and emotion sets his work apart from that of his contemporaries. When the disgraced Joachim returns sadly to the hillside, the two young shepherds look sideways at each other. The soldier who drags a baby from its screaming mother in the Massacre of the Innocents does so with his head hunched into his shoulders and a look of shame on his face. The people on the road to Egypt gossip about Mary and Joseph as they go. Of Giotto's realism, the 19th-century English critic John Ruskin said, "He painted the Madonna and St. Joseph and the Christ, yes, by all means... but essentially Mamma, Papa and Baby".[1]
Famous narratives in the series include the
Mature works
Giotto worked on other frescoes in Padua, some now lost, such as those that were in the Basilica of St. Anthony[31] and the Palazzo della Ragione.[32] Numerous painters from northern Italy were influenced by Giotto's work in Padua, including
From 1306 from 1311 Giotto was in Assisi, where he painted the frescoes in the transept area of the Lower Church of the Basilica of St. Francis, including The Life of Christ, Franciscan Allegories and the Magdalene Chapel, drawing on stories from the Golden Legend and including the portrait of Bishop Teobaldo Pontano, who commissioned the work. Several assistants are mentioned, including Palerino di Guido. The style demonstrates developments from Giotto's work at Padua.[1]
In 1311, Giotto returned to Florence. A document from 1313 about his furniture there shows that he had spent a period in Rome sometime beforehand. It is now thought that he produced the design for the famous
The cardinal also commissioned Giotto to decorate the apse of St. Peter's Basilica with a cycle of frescoes that were destroyed during the 16th-century renovation. According to Vasari, Giotto remained in Rome for six years, subsequently receiving numerous commissions in Italy, and in the Papal seat at Avignon, but some of the works are now recognized to be by other artists.
In Florence, where documents from 1314 to 1327 attest to his financial activities, Giotto painted an altarpiece, known as the Ognissanti Madonna, which is now on display in the Uffizi, where it is exhibited beside Cimabue's Santa Trinita Madonna and Duccio's Rucellai Madonna.[1] The Ognissanti altarpiece is the only panel painting by Giotto that has been universally accepted by scholars, despite the fact that it is undocumented. It was painted for the church of the Ognissanti (all saints) in Florence, which was built by an obscure religious order, known as the Humiliati.[35] It is a large painting (325 x 204 cm), and scholars are divided on whether it was made for the main altar of the church, where it would have been viewed primarily by the brothers of the order, or for the choir screen, where it would have been more easily seen by a lay audience.[36]
He also painted around the time the Dormition of the Virgin, now in the Berlin
Peruzzi and Bardi Chapels at Santa Croce
According to
The Peruzzi Chapel is adjacent to the Bardi Chapel and was largely painted
The Peruzzi Chapel pairs three frescoes from the life of
The Bardi Chapel depicts the life of St. Francis, following a similar iconography to the frescoes in the Upper Church at Assisi, dating from 20 to 30 years earlier. A comparison shows the greater attention given by Giotto to expression in the human figures and the simpler, better-integrated architectural forms. Giotto represents only seven scenes from the saint's life, and the narrative is arranged somewhat unusually. The story starts on the upper left wall with St. Francis Renounces his Father. It continues across the chapel to the upper right wall with the Approval of the Franciscan Rule, moves down the right wall to the Trial by Fire, across the chapel again to the left wall for the Appearance at Arles, down the left wall to the Death of St. Francis, and across once more to the posthumous Visions of Fra Agostino and the Bishop of Assisi. The Stigmatization of St. Francis, which chronologically belongs between the Appearance at Arles and the Death, is located outside the chapel, above the entrance arch. The arrangement encourages viewers to link scenes together: to pair frescoes across the chapel space or relate triads of frescoes along each wall. The linkings suggest meaningful symbolic relationships between different events in St. Francis's life.[44]
Later works and death
In 1328, the altarpiece of the
After Naples, Giotto stayed for a while in Bologna, where he painted a Polyptych for the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli and, according to some sources, a lost decoration for the Chapel in the Cardinal Legate's Castle.[9] In 1334, Giotto was appointed chief architect to
Giotto appears in the writings of many contemporary authors, including Boccaccio,
Burial and legacy
According to Vasari,
During an excavation in the 1970s, bones were discovered beneath the paving of Santa Reparata at a spot close to the location given by Vasari but unmarked on either level. Forensic examination of the bones by anthropologist Francesco Mallegni and a team of experts in 2000 brought to light some evidence that seemed to confirm that they were those of a painter (particularly the range of chemicals, including arsenic and lead, both commonly found in paint, which the bones had absorbed).[48] The bones were those of a very short man, little over four feet tall, who may have suffered from a form of congenital dwarfism. That supports a tradition at the Church of Santa Croce that a dwarf who appears in one of the frescoes is a self-portrait of Giotto. On the other hand, a man wearing a white hat who appears in the Last Judgement at Padua is also said to be a portrait of Giotto. The appearance of this man conflicts with the image in Santa Croce, in regards to stature.[48]
Forensic reconstruction of the skeleton at Santa Reperata showed a short man with a very large head, a large hooked nose and one eye more prominent than the other. The bones of the neck indicated that the man spent a lot of time with his head tilted backwards. The front teeth were worn in a way consistent with frequently holding a brush between the teeth. The man was about 70 at the time of death.[48] While the Italian researchers were convinced that the body belonged to Giotto and it was reburied with honour near the grave of Filippo Brunelleschi, others have been highly sceptical.[49] Franklin Toker, a professor of art history at the University of Pittsburgh, who was present at the original excavation in 1970, says that they are probably "the bones of some fat butcher".[50]
References
Footnotes
- ^ The year of his birth is calculated from the fact that Antonio Pucci, the town crier of Florence, wrote a poem in Giotto's honour in which it is stated that he was 70 at the time of his death. However, the word "seventy" fits into the rhyme of the poem better than any longer and more complex age so it is possible that Pucci used artistic license.[1]
Citations
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Sarel Eimerl, The World of Giotto, Time-Life Books.
- ISBN 978-3822851609
- ^ Giotto at the Encyclopædia Britannica
- ^ "Giotto". Collins English Dictionary. HarperCollins. Retrieved June 1, 2019.
- ^ "Giotto" (US) and "Giotto". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 2020-03-03.
- ^ "Giotto". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Retrieved June 1, 2019.
- ISBN 978-0-500-23954-4.
He worked during the period described as Gothic or Pre-Renaissance ...
- ISBN 0-669-20900-7(Paperback). p. 37.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, trans. George Bull, Penguin Classics (1965), pp. 15–36.
- ^ a b Hartt, Frederick (1989). Art: a history of painting, sculpture, architecture. Harry N. Abrams. pp. 503–506.
- Mugello region.
- ^ Michael Viktor Schwarz and Pia Theis, "Giotto's Father: Old Stories and New Documents", Burlington Magazine, 141 (1999), 676–677, and idem, Giottus Pictor. Band 1: Giottos Leben, Vienna, 2004.
- ^ Eimerl 1967, p. 85.
- ^ Maginnis, Hayden B.J., "In Search of an Artist", in Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona, The Cambridge Companion to Giotto, Cambridge, 2004, 12–13.
- ^ Dalivalle, Antonia (10 May 2019). "Giotto's Fly and the Birth of the Renaissance". thecultural.me. Recreyo Ltd. Retrieved 20 September 2021.
- ^ a b c Eimerl 1967, p. 106.
- OCLC 2616448
- ^ Eimerl 1967, pp. 95, 106–07.
- ^ Maginnis, "In Search of an Artist", 23–28.
- ^ In 1312, the will of Ricuccio Pucci leaves funds to keep a lamp burning before the crucifix "by the illustrious painter Giotto". Ghiberti also cites it as a work by Giotto.
- ^ Sarel. A. Teresa Hankey, "Riccobaldo of Ferraro and Giotto: An Update", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 54 (1991), 244.
- ^ Rintelen, Friedrich, Giotto und die Giotto-apokryphen (1912).
- ^ See, for example, Richard Offner's famous article of 1939, "Giotto, non-Giotto", conveniently collected in James Stubblebine, Giotto: The Arena Chapel Frescoes, New York, 1969 (reissued 1996), 135–155, which argues against Giotto's authorship of the frescoes. In contrast, Luciano Bellosi, La pecora di Giotto, Turin, 1985, calls each of Offner's points into question.
- ^ Zanardi, Bruno, Giotto e Pietro Cavallini: La questione di Assisi e il cantiere medievale della pittura a fresco, Milan, 2002; Zanardi provides an English synopsis of his study in Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona, The Cambridge Companion to Giotto, New York, 2004, 32–62.
- ^ "Padua's fourteenth-century fresco cycles, UNESCO declaration". UNESCO. Retrieved 15 August 2021.
- ^ See the complaint of the Eremitani monks in James Stubblebine, Giotto: The Arena Chapel Frescoes, New York, 1969, 106–107 and an analysis of the commission by Benjamin G. Kohl, "Giotto and his Lay Patrons", in Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona, The Cambridge Companion to Giotto, Cambridge, 2004, 176–193.
- ^ Schwarz, Michael Viktor, "Padua, its Arena, and the Arena Chapel: a liturgical ensemble", in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 73, 2010, 39–64.
- ^ Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona, The Usurer's Heart: Giotto, Enrico Scrovegni, and the Arena Chapel in Padua, University Park, 2008; Laura Jacobus, Giotto and the Arena Chapel: Art, Architecture and Experience, London, 2008; Andrew Ladis, Giotto's O: Narrative, Figuration, and Pictorial Ingenuity in the Arena Chapel, University Park, 2009.
- ISBN 978-963-315-076-4.
- ISBN 3822851604.
- ^ The remaining parts (Stigmata of St. Francis, Martyrdom of Franciscans at Ceuta, Crucifixion and Heads of Prophets) are most likely from assistants.
- ^ Finished in 1309 and mentioned in a text from 1350 by Giovanni da Nono. They had an astrological theme, inspired by the Lucidator, a treatise famous in the 14th century.
- S2CID 195043668.
- ^ White, 332, 343
- ^ La 'Madonna d'Ognissanti' di Giotto restaurata, Florence, 1992; Julia I. Miller and Laurie Taylor-Mitchell, "The Ognissanti Madonna and the Humiliati Order in Florence", in The Cambridge Companion to Giotto, ed. Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona, Cambridge, 2004, 157–175.
- ^ Julian Gardner, "Altars, Altarpieces and Art History: Legislation and Usage", in Italian Altarpieces, 1250–1500, ed. Eve Borsook and Fiorella Gioffredi, Oxford, 1994, 5–39; Irene Hueck, "Le opere di Giotto per la chiesa di Ognissanti", in La 'Madonna d'Ognissanti' di Giotto restaurata, Florence, 1992, 37–44.
- ^ Duncan Kennedy, Giotto's Ognissanti Crucifix brought back to life, BBC News, 2010-11-05. Accessed 2010-11-07
- ^ Ghiberti, I commentari, ed. O Morisani, Naples, 1947, 33.
- ^ Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de' più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori Italiani ed. G. Milanesi, Florence, 1878, I, 373–374.
- ^ L. Tintori and E. Borsook, The Peruzzi Chapel, Florence, 1965, 10; J. White, Art and Architecture in Italy, Baltimore, 1968, 72f.
- ^ C. Brandi, Giotto, Milan, 1983, 185–186; L.Bellosi, Giotto, Florence, 1981, 65, 71.
- ^ Tintori and Borsook; Laurie Schneider Adams, "The Iconography of the Peruzzi Chapel". L’Arte, 1972, 1–104. (Reprinted in Andrew Ladis ed., Giotto and the World of Early Italian Art New York and London, 1998, 3, 131–144); Julie F. Codell, "Giotto's Peruzzi Chapel Frescoes: Wealth, Patronage and the Earthly City", Renaissance Quarterly, 41 (1988), 583–613.
- ).
- ^ The concept of such linkings was first suggested for Padua by Michel Alpatoff, "The Parallelism of Giotto's Padua Frescoes", Art Bulletin, 39 (1947) 149–154. It has been tied to the Bardi Chapel by Jane C. Long, "The Program of Giotto’s Saint Francis Cycle at Santa Croce in Florence", Franciscan Studies 52 (1992) 85–133, and William R. Cook, "Giotto and the Figure of St. Francis", in The Cambridge Companion to Giotto, ed. A. Derbes and M. Sandona, Cambridge, 2004, 135–156.
- OCLC 963830818.
- ^ Eimerl 1967, p. 158.
- ^ Eimerl 1967, p. 135.
- ^ a b c IOL, September 22, 2000.
- ^ "Critics slam Giotto burial as a grave mistake". Business Report. Independent Online. Sapa-AP. 8 January 2001.
- ^ Johnston, Bruce (6 January 2001). "Skeleton riddle threatens Giotto's reburial". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 23 March 2018.
Sources
- Eimerl, Sarel (1967). The World of Giotto: c. 1267–1337. et al. Time-Life Books. ISBN 0-900658-15-0.
- Previtali, G. Giotto e la sua bottega (1993)
- Vasari, Giorgio. Le vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architetti (1568)
- — —. Lives of the Artists, trans. George Bull, Penguin Classics (1965), ISBN 0-14-044164-6
- ISBN 0140561285
Further reading
- Bistoletti, Sandrina Bandera Giotto: catalogo completo dei dipinti (I gigli dell'arte; 2) Cantini, Firenze, 1989. ISBN 88-7737-050-5.
- ISBN 88-8491-229-6.
- ISBN 88-06-58339-5.
- de Castris, Pierluigi Leone, Giotto a Napoli, Electa Napoli, Napoli 2006. ISBN 88-510-0386-6.
- ISBN 0-06-430900-2.
- Cole, Bruce, Giotto: The Scrovegni Chapel, Padua. New York: George Braziller, 1993. ISBN 0-8076-1310-X.
- Colvin, Sidney (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). pp. 34–37.
- Derbes, Anne and Sandona, Mark, eds., A Cambridge Companion to Giotto. Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN 978-0-521-77007-1.
- Flores D'Arcais, Francesca, Giotto. New York: Abbeville, 2012. ISBN 0789211149.
- ISBN 978-88-06-18462-9.
- Gioseffi, Decio, Giotto architetto, Edizioni di Comunità, Milano, 1963.
- Giotto the Painter. Vol. 1: Life (with a Collection of the Documents and Texts up to Vasari and an Appendix of Sources on the Arena Chapel), by ISBN 978-3205217015.
- Gnudi, Cesare, Giotto (I sommi dell'arte italiana), Martello, Milano, 1958.
- ISBN 978-0271034072.
- Meiss, Millard, Giotto and Assisi, New York University Press, 1960.
- ISBN 978-8866433538.
- Ruskin, John, Giotto and His Works in Padua, London, 1900 (2nd edn, 1905).
- Tintori, Leonetto, and Meiss, Millard, The Painting of the Life of St. Francis in Assisi, with Notes on the Arena Chapel, New York University Press, 1962.
- Sirén, Osvald, Giotto and Some of His Followers (English translation by Frederic Schenck). Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.), 1917.
- Wolf, Norbert, Giotto di Bondone, 1267–1337: The Renewal of Painting. Los Angeles: Taschen, 2006. ISBN 978-3-8228-5160-9.