Giotto

From ZuluNotes - Free Leaving Cert Notes

Giotto was one of the most famous of the pre-Renaissance artists. He was a pupil of Cimabue, and is referred to in Dante’s ‘The Divine Comedy’ as the pupil who excelled the master. His innovations in painting were to be so revolutionary that he was to influence such future greats as Michelangelo and Donatello.

Up to the 14th century the most popular type of painting was the Byzantine style. This was a rigid style, which hadn’t developed much in the previous 400 years. The figures weren’t proportional to each other but were sized according to importance with the most important being the biggest. They had no emotional expressions, as it was believed that only solemnity was suitable for holy figures. The pictures had no sense of depth.

But Giotto was to change this. His most significant innovations were depth, which he created by using the folds and drapes in fabric, much in the same way as the Gothic sculptors. He also brought a new intensity of emotion to his characters. Giotto created a new sense of realism by setting his figures in a background and through the previously unseen technique of foreshortening. The most famous example of his work is in the chapel at Padua, where he painted a series of frescoes, including the ‘Lamentation’ and the ‘Taking of Christ’.

The series of frescoes in the chapel at Padua were commissioned in atonement for the patron’s dead father’s sins. They tell the story of Mary, her parents, Joaquim and Anna, her husband Joseph, and her son Jesus Christ.

The ‘Lamentation’ was painted by Giotto between 1304 and 1309. It is pre-Renaissance in style and is a fresco. The colours used are subdued – pale pinks, yellows, and blues. The painting is three dimensional in form. This is created using foreshortening in the angels and in St. John’s arms, which are flung backwards. This difficult foreshortening is almost perfectly executed. Form is also created in the shading of the clothes on the figures – particularly the two figures with their backs to the viewer. The clothes disguise the lack of knowledge of anatomy.

Like all of Giotto’s paintings the figures look as if they are on a stage set. The background is minimalistic but it is enough to give the sense that the figures are stable, not floating in the air like Byzantine paintings.

Giotto’s use of emotion is easily seen in this painting. The angels have their hands clasped together in despair. The same face is used for each figure but is made to look different through the use of side and ¾ profiles, hair and beards.

This painting isn’t an open composition. The figures with their backs to the viewer exclude us from the scene. It is a private moment of sorrow. The centre of focus is Christ as all of the figures are looking at him. Christ is looking at the angels, which leads the viewer upwards. They in turn lead the viewer downwards again. The wall receding into the background leads the viewer from the right to the left.

The same innovations can also be seen in the ‘Taking of Christ’. Again, the figures look as if they are on a stage set and are given depth by the treatment of their clothes. Judas wears a bright yellow cloak that draws attention to his act of betrayal.

Around the time Giotto died a plague swept Italy and the people again reverted to the Byzantine style, which was believed to be holier. As a result the amazing innovations by Giotto, were ignored and it was to be another 100 years before they were rediscovered and used as an inspiration of the artists of the Renaissance.