Artist Profile… Giotto di Bondone

Tags

1200s, 1300s, 13th Century, 14th Century, art, Artists, Byzantine, Florence, Giotto, Italy, Painters, Paintings, Religious, Renaissance

Name: Giotto di Bondone
Work: Painter (frescoes)
Born: 1266/7
Died: 1302
Hometown: Florence, Italy
Period: Late Byzantine / Early Italian Renaissance
Influences: Cimabue (his teacher), Giovanni Pisano (the sculptor)
Infleunced: Massaccio

What I have learnt about his work in general:
Giotto painted religious frescoes, and he was devoted to portraying people and emotions as accurately and realistically as possible. creating tangible lifelike figures. This has meant Giotto is often said to be the father of the Renaissance. He focused on simplicity, and removing all that was unneccessary from his paintings.

Lamentation of Christ (fresco), Giotto
~1305
Scrovegni Chapel, Padua

My interpretation of this painting:
In this religious painting of the lamentation of Christ, I feel Giotto was trying to convey the complete sense of loss and mourning of its subjects and the gravity of the event. He used naturalistic light, shade and colour to ground the image in realism, and the pained expressions are honest and compelling. The eye is drawn down the rock as well as along the gazes of the subjects to the faces of Christ and his mother, the focal point of the piece. The two people in the foreground with their backs to us make you feel as though you are almost in the painting with them (which was apparently a very unique concept at the time) and this further encourages you to share in the great emotion of the scene.