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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
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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
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Wall painting, common elsewhere in Europe, became a preeminent art
form 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 of
cathedrals, but for secondary altars, parish churches and private
chapels as well.
This growing demand reflected the new sources of patronage
created by Italy’s rapidly growing urban society.
Economic changes throughout Europe, centering on banking and
commercial interests in Italy, began to emerge as powerful forces in
the shipment and circulation of goods in the region.
Late Gothic art in Italy forms a bridge between Medieval and
Renaissance arts.
During this period, two very important school’s of painting emerged in
Siena 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 Gothic
sculpture was to liberate
works from the wall, allowing
them to occupy space
independently of their
architectural framework.
• In that same way, Italian
painting of the late Gothic
period is characterized by
large scale panels that stand
on their own as works of art.
Last
Judgment
St. Lazare
c.1120
France
Ekkehard
and Uta
c.1250
Germany
Giotto
Lamentation
1305
Italy
Duccio
Siena
Giotto
Florence
Sienese Painting
Duccio, Martini, Lorenzetti
Characteristics
of Sienese Painting
Blanche of Castile and Louis IX
Manuscript
c. 1228
French
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Duccio, Seizing of Jesus, c1310, panel
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.
Duccio di Buoninsegna
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Duccio di Buoninsegna was the
first great Sienese painter.
He stands in relation to the
Sienese School as Giotto does to
the Florentine.
Yet without the powerful
naturalism that makes the art of
Giotto so revolutionary.
Rather, Duccio sums up the
grave and austere beauty of
centuries of Byzantine tradition
and infuses it with a breath of the
new humanity which was being
spread by the new Orders of SS.
Francis and Dominic.
Duccio
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Siena’s foremost painter, active
1278-1318.
In his painting, he combined both
Byzantine and northern Gothic
influences, in a style sometimes
referred to as, Maniera Greca
Duccio and his studio painted the
grand Maesta (majesty) Altarpice,
for the main altar of Siena Cathedral.
Creating this altarpiece was a
tremendous undertaking.
The central panel alone measures
7x13 feet, and it had to be painted on
both sides because the altar was in
the center of the sanctuary.
Maesta Altarpiece
Duccio, 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.
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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
Annunciation
Simone Martini
Siena Cathedral
Italy, 1333
Tempera and gold
on wood panel
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May have been an
assistant to Duccio
Gold leaf and punch
work, typically
Sienese.
Elegant figures focus on
the psychological
aspects of the
Annunciation.
Only bare essentials are
included.
International Gothic
style of painting.
• Birth of the Virgin
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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 Country
1338-1340, fresco, Palazzo Publico, Siena
• Frescos are located in the
Palazzo Publico Siena’s
Gothic style town hall,
where judges met to hear
cases
• Inscriptions on the fresco are
in both Latin and Italian,
reflecting a highly educated
society
• One section of the fresco
illustrates a city scene
• The other section is a
country landscape
• There are also frescos
illustrating the results of bad
government
City View from
Good Government in the City and the Country
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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 and
building is flourishing
Country View from
Good Government in the City and the Country
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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 Painting
Cimabue and Giotto
Characteristics of
Florentine Painting
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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 Duccio
top left
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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
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In Florence, the transformation of the
Italian/Byzantine style began somewhat earlier
than it did in Siena.
Duccio’s Florentine counterpart was an older
painter known as Cimabue.
Cimabue employed Byzantine formulas in
determining the proportions of his figures, the
placement of their features and even the tilts of
their haloed heads.
However, Cimabue’s concern for spatial
volumes, solid forms, and warmly naturalistic
human figures contributed to the course of
later Italian painting.
According to legend, Cimabue discovered a
talented shepherd boy, named Giotto di Bondone,
and taught him how to paint.
Giotto went on to outshine his teacher
Crucifix
Cimabue
Tempera on wood
1268-71
Detail of Cimabue’s
Crucifix. 1268
feels very Byzantine
Christ Pantokrator
mosaic, Greece,
ca. 1080-1100
Virgin and Child Enthroned
Cimabue.
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
Giotto was also an architect and
designed the bell tower
outside the Florence Cathedral
• Proto-Renaissance artist
• Florentine painter and architect.
• Outstanding as a painter, sculptor,
and architect, Giotto was recognized
as the first genius of art in the
Italian Renaissance.
• Giotto lived and worked at a time
when people's minds and talents were
first being freed from the shackles of
medieval restraint.
• He dealt largely in the traditional
religious subjects, but he gave these
subjects an earthly, full-blooded life
and force.
Virgin and Child Enthroned
Giotto
Florence, Italy c. 1310
gold 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
Giotto
1280
1310
How are they
different?
The Arena Chapel
Padua, Italy
Capella degli Scrovegni
• Giotto’s masterpiece is the
frescoed interior of the Arena
chapel built for the Scrovegni
family in Padua
• Painted about 1305
• While painting in the church
of Saint Anthony in Padua,
Giotto was approached by a
local merchant, Enrico
Scrovegni to decorate a new
family chapel.
• The Chapel named for a
nearby ancient Roman arena is
a simple barrel vaulted room.
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It is often suggested that Enrico
built the chapel in penitence for
his father's sins.
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Enrico's father, Reginaldo degli
Scrovegni is the usurer
encountered by Dante in the
Seventh Circle of Hell.
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Though Enrico devoted a
paragraph in his will directing
his heirs to make restitutions, his
true motivation is unknown.
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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 frame
work of a rectangular narrative
scenes, Giotto juxtaposed
scenes from the life of the
Virgin with that of Jesus.
• Both the individual scenes and
the overall program display
Giotto’s genius for distilling a
complex narrative into a
coherent visual experience.
• Among Giotto’s achievements
was his ability to model form
with color.
• He rendered his bulky figures as
pure color masses, painting the
deepest shadows with the most
intense 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 the
composition for
maximum emotional
effect off center, on
the faces of Mary
and the dead Jesus.
• A great downward
swooping ridge, it’s
bareness emphasized
by a single dry tree,
a medieval symbol
of death, carries the
psychological
weight of the scene
to it’s expressive
core.
• 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 this
detail of the
sleeping Roman
soldiers.
• You will soon see a
great similarity in
the same subject
painted by Piero
della Francesca in
the Early
Renaissance.
• Giotto covered
an entrance wall
of the chapel
with a scene of
The Last
Judgement
• Watch for a
similar painting
by Michelangelo
in the Sistine
Chapel
Still a very Gothic
version of Hell
The Legacy of Giotto
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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 Painting
Sienese, Florentine and the Future
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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.