Giotto broke with the Byzantine tradition and used “naturalness”
and 3-dimensional portrayals in his work. The sixteenth century biographer
Giorgio Vasari writes colourfully about Giotto and his status in the History of
Art [1]:
The gratitude which the masters
in painting owe to nature - who is ever the truest model of him who, possessing
the power to select the brightest parts from her best and loveliest features,
employs himself unweariedly in the reproduction of these beauties - this
gratitude, I say, is due, in my judgement, to the Florentine painter, Giotto,
seeing that he alone - although born amidst incapable artists, and at a time
when all good methods in art had long been entombed beneath the ruins of war -
yet, by the favour of Heaven, he, I say, alone succeeded in resuscitating art,
and restoring her to a path that may be called the true one.
Vasari goes on to describe how the young Giotto, drawing on
stones while looking after his father’s sheep, was seen by Cimabue who
marvelled at his natural skill and took him into his studio. Giotto soon eclipsed
his master and later became much in demand as a painter of religious subjects in chapels
and other holy places, among the most famous works being the frescoes in the Capella
della Scrovegni (Arena Chapel) in Padua [2].
Although the main human figures in
each of the frescoes demonstrate the ability of a great artist, I am drawn to the
angels (some of which are shown below), especially those described by Anne
Holmes that “float like modern hang-gliders” [3].
Having discussed the inability of angels to use flapping
flight (unless they fly by mystical forces) [4], Giotto’s hang-glider angels
are of special interest to me, as it is implied that they use gliding flight. Their
costumes break up around their base as the angels fly rapidly toward Earth and
this was probably intended to convey speed and not, as one wag suggested, the first
signs of burning up on entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. Giotto liked “jests
and witty retorts” [1] but this is unlikely to be one of them. He was a close
observer of the sky and “painted the first naturalistic depiction of a comet in
his scene of the Adoration of the Magi [see below]” [5],
so it is not inconceivable that his idea for the breaking up of the angels’ costumes
came from observations of meteors.
The late Sidney J. Blatt, the distinguished psychologist at
Yale University, turned a psychoanalyst’s eye on the Giotto frescoes in Padua
and on the artist’s use of naturalness [6].
He writes:
Giotto was influenced by the
Franciscan Weltanschauung, and his
narrative frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel present biblical stories as human
situations with which the viewer could identify. Saints were portrayed not only
as remote, transcendental spirits but as people who experienced a wide range of
emotions, from pleasure to anguish, joy to despair.. ..Giotto’s figures have
depth and volume, are presented from various vantage points including profile,
rear, and three-quarter views, and express vivid emotion in their gestures and
facial expressions.. ..Giotto’s visual narratives enabled the illiterate to
become more familiar with biblical stories. His realism reduced the distance
between man and God by representing religious narratives not as sacred stories
but as natural, spontaneous interactions among people.
The main focus of our attention in the frescoes are the
events unfolding on Earth, but the angels also show facial expressions, albeit
not in the detail of the figures on the ground. If Giotto was trying to convey
emotions, what was going through the mind of the angel that seems to show pain,
or horror, at having to pull up near vertically (see below)? The wag mentioned
earlier suggested it might be because the angel was going into a dangerous stall
and needed to recover, but this facetious comment does little to answer the
question.
Further in his article, Blatt [6] points out that:
..Giotto alluded to infinity..
..by using celestial blue as the background color of his Padua frescoes rather
than the reflective, impenetrable gold used so often in medieval art.. ..The
suggestion of infinity of nature in Giotto’s Padua frescoes was an important
step in the replacement of the closed world of the ancients by the open world
of the moderns. The Giotto frescoes implicitly encourage man not to be
terrified of infinity or to leave it to God but to try to comprehend and use it
as a fundamental concept in the study of nature, not only in art, but in literature,
philosophy, mathematics, and science as well.
This is a profound comment and ties Giotto to the beginnings
of the “Scientific Revolution” at the beginning of the Renaissance. However,
religious subjects provide a challenge. For example, where was Heaven? The idea
of angels with bird wings makes Heaven feel close to the Earth, and angels
could then commute relatively easily. Winged angels appear in art from ancient
times and Giotto continues that tradition, as did subsequent artists, and we are still happy with this imagery today. Does that mean we feel that
Heaven is a real place - and are comforted that it is nearby? If so, where is
it?
[1] Giorgio Vasari (2005) Vasari’s Lives of the Artists (translated by Mrs Jonathan Foster).
New York, Dover Publication, Inc. [Ooriginal from 1550, with a revised Second Edition
in 1568]
[3] Anne Holmes (1996) Giotto’s Angels. The Times Literary Supplement 4880:19
[4] Roger S. Wotton (2009) http://www.opticon1826.com/article/viewFile/opt.070906/54
[5] Roberta J. M. Olson and Jay M. Pasachoff (2001)
Moon-struck: artists rediscover Nature and observe. Earth, Moon and Planets 85-86: 303-341.
[6] Sidney J. Blatt (1994) A psychoanalytic appreciation of
Giotto’s mode of artistic representation and its implications for Renaissance
Art and Science. The Psychoanalytic Study
of the Child 49: 365-393.
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