Giotto, The Meeting Between Art And Faith
Giotto di Bondone, born between 1266 and 1276, in Vespignano, near Florence, Italy. He was the most important Italian painter of the 13th century, and many art historians regard his work as a turning point in the development of the arts in Europe.
His groundbreaking work brought out the Renaissance style that developed a century later. For almost seven centuries, Giotto was revered as the father of European painting and the first of the great Italian masters.
For many researchers, the attributions of his work remain problematic and often very speculative. This is due to the fact that little of his life and few of his works are documented and the difficulty in following a stylistic timeline.
Giotto’s beginnings
Much of Giotto’s biography and artistic development has been deduced from the evidence of the surviving works. Despite this, much of these works cannot be attributed to him with certainty.
Most of the stories about his life and work date from the late 14th century. Giorgio Vasari, painter and art historian, described Giotto in his famous book The Vises of the best painters, sculptors and architects .
Giotto’s birth year would be 1266/67 or 1276. The 10-year difference is of fundamental importance in assessing his early development. This difference is crucial for the problem of attribution of the frescoes of the Church of St. Francis in Assisi.
We know that Giotto died on January 8, 1337, as Villani’s chronicle indicates. In this chronicle, it is stated that Giotto was 70 years old when he died.
It has always been assumed that Giotto was a pupil of the eminent artist Cimabue. Cimabue is considered the most important painter in Italy at the end of the 13th century. Cimabue tried to break, like no artist before, with the power of reality and the force of the imagination, the stylized forms of medieval art.
Giotto was inspired by his drawing power and his ability to incorporate dramatic tension into his works. In his works, human beings are the exclusive subject in the context of the great Christian drama of sacrifice and redemption.
By comparison, all of his predecessors and most of his immediate successors painted a puppet show with lifeless mannequins. Giotto broke with the Byzantine tradition and gave way to the emotionality of the Franciscan approach to Christianity.
The problem of Assisi
There is a fundamental problem in Giotto’s studies: the attribution of the Assisi frescoes. Did Giotto actually paint in Assisi, and if so, what did he paint?
There is no reasonable doubt that he worked in Assisi. A long literary tradition dating back to Riccobaldo Ferrarese’s chronological compilation in 1319 attests that he did so. There is evidence of Giotto’s works in the large double church of St. Francis. Several frescoes in the upper and lower churches are attributed to Giotto.
The most important is the cycle of 28 scenes from the life of Saint Francis of Assisi painted in the nave of the upper church. In addition, the Franciscan Virtues and some other frescoes from the lower church are attributed to him.
Most of these scenes are revolutionary in their expression of reality and humanity. The emphasis on the dramatic moment of each situation and the inner reality of human emotion are captured intensely, through crucial gestures and gazes.
In the 19th century, however, it was observed that not all of these frescoes, although similar in style, could not be by the same author. Skepticism and the belief that the Assisi frescoes and the cycle of Saint Francis date from a period after Giotto’s death have taken hold. This extreme point of view has generally been abandoned.
It is easy to understand that Giotto, a young man, was so successful that he received the most important commission to paint the official biography of Saint Francis, written around 1266 by Saint Bonaventura. The current mental image of Saint Francis comes largely from these frescoes.
Giotto and the Roman period
Three major works are attributed to Giotto in Rome. These are the large mosaic of Christ walking on water (La Navicella), located above the entrance of Saint Peter, the altarpiece painted for Cardinal Stefaneschi (Vatican Museum) and the fragment of fresco of Boniface VIII proclaiming the Jubilee, at San Giovanni in Laterano (Saint John in Lateran).
Similar attribution problems also arise for these Roman works. During this period, Giotto may also have made the Crucifix in Santa Maria Novella and the Madonna in San Giorgio and Massimiliano dello Spirito Santo (both in Florence).
The Padua period
The cycle of frescoes in the Chapel of Padua, known as the Chapel of the Scrovegni, is an example of Giotto’s early development. The chapel was founded in 1303 and consecrated on March 25, 1305. It shows the founder offering a model of the church in the immense Last Judgment, which covers the entire west wall.
The rest of the small bare church is covered with frescoes on three levels. These frescoes represent scenes from the life of Joachim and Anne, the life of the Virgin, the Annunciation (in the arch of the choir), the life and Passion of Christ, ending with Pentecost.
Under these three narrative bands is a fourth containing the monochrome personifications of virtues and vices. The frescoes are in relatively good condition, and have enormous narrative power.
Giotto’s legacy
Giotto achieved great personal fame during his lifetime. Dante mentions him in The Divine Comedy , which cemented the fame that would follow him in 14th and 15th century Italy. From this work, many legends began to crystallize around the name of Giotto.
Giotto is considered to be the man who broke away from the Middle Ages and who inaugurated modernity. It was not until the Renaissance, with Masaccio and Michelangelo, that his true successors emerged.
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