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Gothic Painting in Italy

Duccio, Martini, Lorenzetti

Cimabue and Giotto

Example of French Late Gothic Painting

Italy and France in the 14th Century

The Great Western Schism

• In 1305, the college of Cardinals, the body that elects a pope, elected

an French pope: Clement V.

• Despite his assurances that he would return to Rome, Clement

established his papacy in Avignon, France.

• By 1378, the Italians, especially the Romans were fed up h with the

French popes in Avignon and they elected a Roman Pope: Urban VI

• For about 40 years there were two popes, one in Avignon and one in

Rome.

• After forty years, the Holy Roman Emperor convened a council to

resolve the issue by electing a new pope, Martin V, who was

acceptable to everyone.

Gothic Painting

• Wall painting, common elsewhere in Europe, became a preeminent artform in Italy.

• Painting on wood panels also surged in popularity.

• Less room on walls, lots of windows and high vaults in cathedrals

• Altarpieces were commissioned not just for the main altars ofcathedrals, but for secondary altars, parish churches and privatechapels as well.

• This growing demand reflected the new sources of patronagecreated by Italy’s rapidly growing urban society.

• Economic changes throughout Europe, centering on banking andcommercial interests in Italy, began to emerge as powerful forces inthe shipment and circulation of goods in the region.

• Late Gothic art in Italy forms a bridge between Medieval andRenaissance arts.

• During this period, two very important school’s of painting emerged inSiena and Florence, rivals in this as in everything else.

Bonaventura Berlinghieri

St Francis Altarpiece

Tempera on panel, 1235

Italian

Gothic Painting

• The trend in later Gothicsculpture was to liberateworks from the wall, allowingthem to occupy spaceindependently of theirarchitectural framework.

• In that same way, Italianpainting of the late Gothicperiod is characterized bylarge scale panels that standon their own as works of art.

Ekkehard

and Uta

c.1250

Germany

Last

Judgment

St. Lazare

c.1120

France

Giotto

Lamentation

1305

Italy

Duccio GiottoSiena Florence

Sienese PaintingDuccio, Martini, Lorenzetti

Characteristics

of Sienese Painting

• More decorative style, not unlike

Northern European art.

• Lots of gold in the backgrounds.

• Figures are thinner and more

elongated than in Florentine painting.

• Colors are rich and decorative, lots

of fine lines, not very much volume

of shading.

• More likely to reach deep into the

picture plan in creating space.

• Often another room is reveled

through an open doorway.

Blanche of Castile and Louis IX

Manuscript

c. 1228

French

Duccio, Seizing of Jesus, c1310, panel

Duccio di Buoninsegna

• Duccio di Buoninsegna was thefirst great Sienese painter.

• He stands in relation to theSienese School as Giotto does tothe Florentine.

• Yet without the powerfulnaturalism that makes the art ofGiotto so revolutionary.

• Rather, Duccio sums up thegrave and austere beauty ofcenturies of Byzantine traditionand infuses it with a breath of thenew humanity which was beingspread by the new Orders of SS.Francis and Dominic.

Duccio

• Siena’s foremost painter, active1278-1318.

• In his painting, he combined bothByzantine and northern Gothicinfluences, in a style sometimesreferred to as, Maniera Greca

• Duccio and his studio painted thegrand Maesta (majesty) Altarpice,for the main altar of Siena Cathedral.

• Creating this altarpiece was atremendous undertaking.

• The central panel alone measures7x13 feet, and it had to be painted onboth sides because the altar was inthe center of the sanctuary.

Maesta AltarpieceDuccio, 1308-11

Sienna, Italy

The Maesta was broken up in the 18th century. This main scene

depicting the Virgin and Child was once accompanied above and

below by narrative scenes from the life of Christ and the Virgin.

• Tempera on wood

• Created for the main altar of Siena Cathedral

• Only signed work by Duccio

• Hieratic arrangement of figures

• Back of Duccio’s Maesta

• Scenes from the Life of Christ

Duccio

Crucifixion, 1310

AnnunciationSimone Martini

Siena Cathedral

Italy, 1333

Tempera and gold

on wood panel

• May have been anassistant to Duccio

• Gold leaf and punchwork, typicallySienese.

• Elegant figures focus onthe psychologicalaspects of theAnnunciation.

• Only bare essentials areincluded.

• International Gothicstyle of painting.

• Birth of the Virgin

• Pietro Lorenzetti.

• 1335-1342

• Siena Cathedral, Italy

• Triptych, tempera and

gold on wood

• Gothic elements

• More robust and life like

style, includes a well

furnished somewhat

realistic interior.

• Some sense of space, note

the doors and windows

• Forerunner of the birth of

Jesus,

• It is easy to spot

the Gothic

references in

this painting,

but do you see

anything that is

reminiscent of

the Classical

style?

Ambrogio Lorenzetti

Good Government in the City and the Country1338-1340, fresco, Palazzo Publico, Siena

• Frescos are located in thePalazzo Publico Siena’sGothic style town hall,where judges met to hearcases

• Inscriptions on the fresco arein both Latin and Italian,reflecting a highly educatedsociety

• One section of the frescoillustrates a city scene

• The other section is acountry landscape

• There are also frescosillustrating the results of badgovernment

City View from

Good Government in the City and the Country

• Scene is viewed from a high viewpoint

• Town appears to be prosperous, a result of good government

• People are happy, some dance in the streets

• Crafts and trades flourish, food and goods are being brought into the city andbuilding is flourishing

Country View from

Good Government in the City and the Country

• Peaceful villas in the countryside, again viewed from above

• Evidence of a plentiful harvest, vineyards, orchards, etc.

• Port in distance, represents trade and commerce

• Gallows represents fair judgment for all

• Rich folks head out to the countryside to go falconning

• Farmers head into the city with their livestock and grain

Florentine PaintingCimabue and Giotto

Characteristics of

Florentine Painting

• Usually frescos done in tempera right into

the wall, which allowed for greater modeling

and shading

• Early Florentine painters like Cimabue

painted in a more traditional Byzantine style,

called Maniera Greca, not unlike Ducciotop left

• Later painters followed Giotto’s leadership

creating more full bodied figures that were

firmly anchored in space.

• Facial features began to exhibit more

emotion and expression, bottom left

• Compositions move away from a center

only focus.

Cimabue and Giotto

• In Florence, the transformation of theItalian/Byzantine style began somewhat earlierthan it did in Siena.

• Duccio’s Florentine counterpart was an olderpainter known as Cimabue.

• Cimabue employed Byzantine formulas indetermining the proportions of his figures, theplacement of their features and even the tilts oftheir haloed heads.

• However, Cimabue’s concern for spatialvolumes, solid forms, and warmly naturalistichuman figures contributed to the course oflater Italian painting.

• According to legend, Cimabue discovered atalented shepherd boy, named Giotto di Bondone,and taught him how to paint.

• Giotto went on to outshine his teacher

CrucifixCimabue

Tempera on wood

1268-71

Detail of Cimabue’s

Crucifix. 1268

feels very Byzantine

Christ Pantokrator

mosaic, Greece,

ca. 1080-1100

Virgin and Child EnthronedCimabue.

C. 1280, Florence, Italy

gold and tempera on wood

• Almost 12 feet high

• Follows Byzantine

iconography of the Virgin

pointing the way; she points to

Christ as the path to salvation.

• Interesting spatial ambiguities,

the Virgin’s thoughtful gaze,

and the well observed faces of

the old men are all departures

from tradition that enliven the

picture.

Cimabue details

Giotto di Bondone, 1267-1337

Giotto's contemporary Giovanni Villani

wrote that Giotto was "the most sovereign

master of painting in his time, who drew all

his figures and their postures according to

nature. And he was given a salary by the

commune [of Florence] in virtue of his

talent and excellence.”

The later 16th century biographer Giorgio

Vasari says of him "...He made a decisive

break with the ...Byzantine style, and

brought to life the great art of painting as

we know it today, introducing the technique

of drawing accurately from life, which had

been neglected for nearly 800 years”.

Giotto di Bondone

c.1267-1337

• Proto-Renaissance artist

• Florentine painter and architect.

• Outstanding as a painter, sculptor,and architect, Giotto was recognizedas the first genius of art in theItalian Renaissance.

• Giotto lived and worked at a timewhen people's minds and talents werefirst being freed from the shackles ofmedieval restraint.

• He dealt largely in the traditionalreligious subjects, but he gave thesesubjects an earthly, full-blooded lifeand force.

Giotto was also an architect and

designed the bell tower

outside the Florence Cathedral

Virgin and Child EnthronedGiotto

Florence, Italy c. 1310gold and tempera on wood

• Compared to Cimabue’s

Virgin Enthroned, this piece

exhibits a groundbreaking

spatial consistency and

sculptural solidity.

• By rendering the play of

light and shadow across

their substantial forms, he

has created the sense that

his figures are fully three

dimensional beings

inhabiting real space.

Cimabue Giotto1280 1310

How are they

different?

The Arena ChapelPadua, Italy

• Giotto’s masterpiece is thefrescoed interior of the Arenachapel built for the Scrovegnifamily in Padua

• Painted about 1305

• While painting in the churchof Saint Anthony in Padua,Giotto was approached by alocal merchant, EnricoScrovegni to decorate a newfamily chapel.

• The Chapel named for anearby ancient Roman arena isa simple barrel vaulted room.

Capella degli Scrovegni

• It is often suggested that Enrico

built the chapel in penitence for

his father's sins.

• Enrico's father, Reginaldo degli

Scrovegni is the usurer

encountered by Dante in the

Seventh Circle of Hell.

• Though Enrico devoted a

paragraph in his will directing

his heirs to make restitutions, his

true motivation is unknown.

• Enrico's tomb is in the apse, and

he is also portrayed in the Last

Judgment presenting a model of

the chapel to the Virgin.

• Set inside the painted framework of a rectangular narrativescenes, Giotto juxtaposedscenes from the life of theVirgin with that of Jesus.

• Both the individual scenes andthe overall program displayGiotto’s genius for distilling acomplex narrative into acoherent visual experience.

• Among Giotto’s achievementswas his ability to model formwith color.

• He rendered his bulky figures aspure color masses, painting thedeepest shadows with the mostintense hues.

This diagram outlines

The program of paintings

in the Arena Chapel.

Marriage of the Virgin

The Visitation

The Nativity

Flight into Egypt

The Baptism

of Christ

• The Betrayal

How do they differ?

• In the moving work,The Lamentation,Giotto focused thecomposition formaximum emotionaleffect off center, onthe faces of Maryand the dead Jesus.

• A great downwardswooping ridge, it’sbareness emphasizedby a single dry tree,a medieval symbolof death, carries thepsychologicalweight of the sceneto it’s expressivecore.

• Giotto conveys real

human suffering,

drawing the viewer into

the circle of personal

grief, the direct

emotional appeal of his

art as well as its

deliberate plainness,

embodies it’s Franciscan

values.

These two frescos were across from each other in the chapel

• Remember thisdetail of thesleeping Romansoldiers.

• You will soon see agreat similarity inthe same subjectpainted by Pierodella Francesca inthe EarlyRenaissance.

• Giotto coveredan entrance wallof the chapelwith a scene of

The LastJudgement

• Watch for asimilar paintingby Michelangeloin the SistineChapel

Still a very Gothic

version of Hell

The Legacy of Giotto

• In common with other artists of his day, Giotto

lacked the technical knowledge of anatomy and

perspective that later painters learned.

• Yet what he possessed was infinitely greater than

the technical skill of the artists who followed him.

• He had a grasp of human emotion and of what was

significant in human life.

• In concentrating on these essentials he created

compelling pictures of people under stress, of

people caught up in crises and soul-searching

decisions.

• Modern artists often seek inspiration from Giotto.

• In him they find a direct approach to human

experience that remains valid for every age.

Gothic PaintingSienese, Florentine and the Future

• Sienese painting was a key contributor to the development of

the International Gothic style, we will soon study.

• But it was Florentine painting in the style originated by

Giotto and kept alive by his pupils and his followers, that

was fundamental to the development, over the next two

centuries, of Italian Renaissance Art.

• However the last sixty years of the 14th century were a difficult

and disastrous time.

• Italy, as well as the rest of Europe, was transformed by

uncertainty and desolation by epidemics of the plague.

• However, as the 14th century drew to a close, the European

middle ages gave way to the marvels of the Renaissance.