Giotto di Bondone (1266-1337) is widely considered to be the father of florentine painting, and indeed even the originator of the rebirth of Italian painting of the Trecento period. His style and genius permeated the social consciousness in the late 13th and early 14th Centuries and persisted to influence and inspire the work of great masters of the age and continued to affect the face of Italian painting right up to 15th Century and beyond. His followers, known as the Giotteschi, were those influential artists who were emulated by Bondone and sought to emulate his genius through their own works. Giotto’s incredible range of works and the speed at which he created them force us to recognise that the use of assistants and pupils for the completion was commissions was a frequent occurrence and we can clearly see the hand of illustrious students such as Maso di Banco and Taddeo Gaddi in several of the old master’s works. Giotto single-handedly redirected the entire conception of form and narrative away from the iconic, highly formal Duecento tradition, and thus rendered the prospect of artists trying to return to the previous stylistic form nearly impossible. It was this revolutionary impact on the world of art that Giotto’s followers responded to so emphatically. Followers such as Bernardo Daddi, Jacopo del Casentino and Masaccio admired several key innovations instigated by the Master and carried it through into their own works long after the time of Bondone. Giotto brought back into the european world, a lexicon of iconographical and stylistic elements that allowed a new generation of artists to completely alter the path of art. After one of his earliest pieces, the Santa Maria Novella crucifix (c.1288), the previous method of dep... ... middle of paper ... ...inter of Saint Stephen”- I Paintings by Taddeo Gaddi, in The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 52, No. 303, Jun., 1928 Maginnis, H.B.J., Giotto’s World Through Visari’s Eyes, in Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte , 56. Bd., H. 3, 1993 Oertel, R., Early Italian Painting to 1400, Thames and Hudson, London, 1966 Offner, R., A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting, New York University, Berlin, 1930, III, II Offner, R., A Discerning Eye, Pennsylvania State Press, Pennsylvania, 1998 Offner, R., Four Panels, A Fresco and a Problem, in The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 54, No. 314., May, 1929 Paatz, E., Die Kirchen von Florenz, Frankfurt am Main, Vol. I, 1955, Pisani, A., The Crucifix by Giotto, on Opera per Santa Maria Novella, 2009 [Accessed Nov 28, 2013]
Caillebote’s “Paris Street; Rainy Day”. The painting was begun in 1876 and finished early in
One of the most noteworthy northern European writers of the Renaissance was the Flemish painter, Jan van Eyck. Although there are few records about his early life and rise to prominence, the Van Eyck family was well regarded within the Burgundian Netherlands which allowed historians to surmise that he was born in the 1380s. After years of travelling through various northern courts and gaining esteem, Jan van Eyck painted perhaps his most famous work, The Arnolfini Double Portrait. This work has been the subject of a great deal of critical analysis as a piece of Renaissance art. Some historians have found that the work is demonstrative of artistic and social ideals that were both ahead of its time and touted the line of controversy. However, taking into account the painting’s patronage, symbolism, artistic style, and function, it becomes clear that The Arnolfini Double Portrait is an exemplar of the Renaissance era artistic conventions and is not as difficult to parse as some critics would believe. In order to discuss the painting in its entirety, it is necessary to explore the context of the painting’s creation.
Carmichael, M. “Fra Filippo Lippi's portrait”, The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, vol. 21, no. 112, July 1912
Lorenzo De Medici can be considered as one of the most influential men of the 13th century. His work in political affairs and administration were renowned in all Italy and his family could count on him in every aspect. Lorenzo was also a promoter of a new period called Renaissance. He was one of the first “mecenate” to explore this new way of art. In this project, I will concentrate how he developed art in Florence, giving a clear example through an Artist of that period that was working for him: Sandro Botticelli. His work “The Spring” is a well-defined example of what we can call “art in the Renaissance”, in particular for the Italian Renaissance.
Faggin, Giorgio T and Hughes, Robert. The Complete Paintings of the Van Eycks. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1976. Print.
9. Bouguereau, William A. Psyche et L'Amour. 1889. Private Collection. Art In the Picture. 2014. 25 Jan. 2014 .
Interestingly, he also refers to Donatello as a ‘craftsman’. The correlation between the artist or sculptor and craftsman is an important aspect in Italian Renaissance art. The craftsman was something more than just an artist. This person was talented and considered by others in Italian Renaissance society as exceptional or as Vasari’s title suggests, ‘the most excellent’. They were also tradespeople rather than just artists. This is because they created works for other people, which often meant they expressed other people’s ideas. Through an analysis of Vasari’s biography on Donatello, this essay will explore the importance of culture in Renaissance Italian society, an examination of Vasari’s biography of Donatello as a historical document and the ways in which Vasari portrays Donatello, which ultimately was significant for future Renaissance craftsmen. This paper will analyze the life of Donatello through Vasari’s The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects to show the importance of Donatello not only as an artist but also as a
Baxandall, Michael. “Conditions of Trade.” Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-century Italy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Baxandall, Michael. “Conditions of Trade.” Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-century Italy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
The paintings by Duccio and Giotto firmly set in place a benchmark for where artwork in the years around 1300 began to develop. These artworks show how paintings began to evolve into more symbolic, naturalistic, and dramatic scenes, depicting events in life and religion. The paintings of Duccio and Giotto are similar in the sense that their paintings were then, in the sense of more modern words, “special effects” of their time. They show vivid colors with meaning and symbolism, atmospheric characters that exist in space, and composition that is well thought out. Overall, these two artists become a pinnacle of art that illustrates Italian paintings in the years around 1300.
The artists of the Baroque had a remarkably different style than artists of the Renaissance due to their different approach to form, space, and composition. This extreme differentiation in style resulted in a very different treatment of narrative. Perhaps this drastic stylistic difference between the Renaissance and Baroque in their treatment of form, space, and composition and how these characteristics effect the narrative of a painting cannot be seen more than in comparing Perugino’s Christ Delivering the Keys of the Kingdom to St. Peter from the Early Renaissance to Caravaggio’s Conversion of St. Paul from the Baroque.Perugino was one of the greatest masters of the Early Renaissance whose style ischaracterized by the Renaissance ideals of purity, simplicity, and exceptional symmetry of composition. His approach to form in Christ Delivering the Keys of the Kingdom to St.Peter was very linear. He outlined all the figures with a black line giving them a sense of stability, permanence, and power in their environment, but restricting the figures’ sense of movement. In fact, the figures seem to not move at all, but rather are merely locked at a specific moment in time by their rigid outline. Perugino’s approach to the figures’themselves is extremely humanistic and classical. He shines light on the figures in a clear, even way, keeping with the rational and uncluttered meaning of the work. His figures are all locked in a contrapposto pose engaging in intellectual conversation with their neighbor, giving a strong sense of classical rationality. The figures are repeated over and over such as this to convey a rational response and to show the viewer clarity. Perugino’s approach to space was also very rational and simple. He organizes space along three simple planes: foreground, middle ground, and background. Christ and Saint Peter occupy the center foreground and solemn choruses of saints and citizens occupy the rest of the foreground. The middle distance is filled with miscellaneous figures, which complement the front group, emphasizing its density and order, by their scattered arrangement. Buildings from the Renaissance and triumphal arches from Roman antiquity occupy the background, reinforcing the overall classical message to the
Additionally, the styles changed; from Rococo, which was meant to represent the aristocratic power and the “style that (…) and ignored the lower classes” (Cullen), to Neoclassicism, which had a special emphasis on the Roman civilization’s virtues, and also to Romanticism, which performs a celebration of the individual and of freedom. Obviously, also the subject matter that inspired the paintings has changed as wel...
Larmann, R., & Shields, M. (2011). Art of Renaissance and Baroque Europe (1400–1750). Gateways to Art (pp. 376-97). New York: W.W. Norton.
To conclude, there were many artists who impacted the way art was created, viewed, and valued, however it was the contribution of Giotto that one could say bought a higher level of realism that has deeply impacted many movements that came after. It was the dawn of the Renaissance and humanism that really shined a light on both linear and atmospheric perspective, foreshortening, and the true anatomy of a person.
“The painter will produce pictures of little worth if he takes for his standard the pictures of others… Giotto the Florentine, who was not content with imitating the works of Cimabue, his master… he excelled not only all the masters of his time but all those of many centuries past…” 3