Giotto, << JO toh >> (1267?-1337), was the most important painter of the 1300’s. His realistic style revolutionized painting in Italy and became a strong influence on the Renaissance masters of the 1400’s.
Giotto’s works.
At the time of Giotto’s birth, Italian painters followed the medieval Byzantine style, which portrayed subjects in a flat, unrealistic manner. Giotto, on the other hand, painted solid, natural-looking forms. For example, to show how light shines on an object in nature, he illuminated one side of the object while painting the other side of it in shadow.
Giotto’s Madonna Enthroned with Saints shows some of the natural, lifelike qualities he introduced into the art of his time. Giotto painted the throne of the Madonna (Virgin Mary) with open sides. He showed two bearded men looking through the openings. In this way, Giotto increased the feeling that the scene is not flat but realistically recedes into space. However, Giotto followed the medieval tradition of making the Madonna larger than the saints and angels who surround her.
Giotto’s greatest achievement was the series of frescoes he painted inside the Scrovegni, or Arena, Chapel in Padua. Most of these are scenes from the lives of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. They show Giotto’s genius at painting natural and simple compositions that express deep human emotions in a moving but restrained way.
Giotto’s last great surviving paintings are frescoes in the Church of Santa Croce in Florence. In these works, Giotto used more complicated compositions than he did in the Scrovegni frescoes.
Giotto was also an architect. In 1334, he became chief architect of the Cathedral of Florence. Giotto designed the campanile (bell tower) that still stands beside it.
His life.
Giotto, the son of a poor shepherd, was born in a village near Florence. His real name was Giotto di Bondone. Scholars know little about Giotto’s early life or his beginnings as an artist. According to one legend, Giotto was watching his father’s sheep and sketching pictures of them on a rock with a sharp stone. The famous Italian painter Giovanni Cimabue happened to be passing by and saw him. The youth’s talent impressed Cimabue so much that he made Giotto his apprentice.
The earliest surviving works definitely attributed to Giotto are the Scrovegni frescoes (about 1305 to 1310). But he had become famous much earlier. In the late 1200’s, a cathedral was built at Assisi to honor Saint Francis. The leading Italian artists were asked to paint frescoes in the cathedral. There is no definite evidence that Giotto worked on the project. But many scholars believe he was commissioned to paint the most important frescoes–those portraying scenes from the life of Saint Francis.
See also Scrovegni Chapel .
