Art Sunday, Back to the Classics, Giotto

 

ART SUNDAY, BACK TO THE CLASSICS

Giotto di Bondone (c. 1267–January 8, 1337),

Giotto di Bondone, better known as Giotto, was an Italian painter and architect. He is generally considered the first in a line of great artists who contributed to and developed the Italian Renaissance. I have chosen Giotto because with out him we would have none of the great masterpieces of the renaissance. His art was extremely innovative, and is commonly considered as a precursor to the explosion of the Italian renaissance. He is the link, the first artist to break with the prescriptive, formulative, and two dimensional styles of the middle ages. He stands as the key link between the Byzantine art of the late middle ages, and the more realistic art, the art we have come to accept as ‘Classical’ , which flowered in the Renaissance. He took the first tentative steps toward realism. The flat, symbolic figures typical of his time, grouped in decorative space gave way to modelled, individualized figures interacting in perspectival space. He used and understood perspective, he modelled his figures, they were individuals, occupying their own place in time and space. Today we take the accomplishments of the great renaissance classical painters so much for grantage we fail to recognise the enormity of what Giotto did. We seem to have totally forgotten the difference between the ‘before Giotto and after Giotto’ He managed to adopt the visual language of the sculptors but in two dimensional work. This was unheard of in his time.

 

Giotto's master work is the Arena Chapel cycle of the Cappella degli Scrovegni in Padua’ depicting the life of the Virgin and the passion of Christ and completed around 1305. He gave us  over has 100 major scenes with the beautifully  sculptural figures set in realistic settings. This is much too small a space to describe all of these wonderful wall paintings, besides it has been done much better than I could ever do by very learned people, but just check out a couple of the web sites about his work and you will see how amasing this man was. Giotto's work was one of the direct influences in  Michelangelo’s scheme for the Sistine Chapel, possibly pinnacle of classical painting.

 

I have saved all the pictures in my photos right here in Multiply, or they are also in my flickr photos here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/forget-me-not5275/sets/72157605624959935/

http://www.du.ac.in/coursematerial/ba/euroart/hyperlinks%202/Giotto.htm

http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/arth213/arenachapel.