208. Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337), Italian,

Faith, c. 1305. Fresco, Cappella Santa

Maria dell’Arena, Padua. Late Medieval.

 

 

Giotto di Bondone

(1267 Vespignano – 1337 Florence)

 

His full name was Ambrogiotto di Bondone, but he is known today, as he was in his own time, by the contraction, Giotto, a word which has come to stand for almost all the great things that art has accomplished. In his own day Giotto’s fame as a painter was supreme; he had numerous followers, and these Giotteschi, as they were styled, perpetuated his methods for nearly a hundred years. In 1334, he designed the beautiful Campanile (bell tower), which stands beside the cathedral in Florence, and represents a perfect union of strength and elegance, and was partly erected in his lifetime. Moreover, the sculptured reliefs which decorate its lower part were all from his designs, though he lived to execute only two of them. Inspired by French Gothic sculpture, he abandoned the stiff presentations of the subjects as in Byzantine styles and advanced art towards more realistic presentation of contemporary figures and scenes so as to be more narrative. His breakthrough influenced subsequent development in Italian art. His significant departure from past presentations of the Maestà, starting around 1308 (in Madonna di Ognissanti), brought to it his knowledge of architecture and its perspectives. However, the disproportion of subjects in the presentation is a device intended to rank the subjects by their importance, as was done in Byzantine icons. Thus, architect, sculptor, painter, friend of Dante and of other great men of his day, Giotto was the worthy forerunner of that galaxy of brilliant men who populated the later days of the Italian Renaissance.