Giotto di Bondone
The painter who gave people weight and emotion.
Giotto broke with the flat Byzantine style and painted figures who stand on the ground and feel grief, joy and doubt. He is regarded as a forerunner of the Renaissance.
Giotto di Bondone was born around 1267 in the Mugello valley north of Florence, according to tradition in the village of Vespignano. He is thought to have trained under Cimabue, but this rests mainly on later accounts. The story that Cimabue discovered him drawing sheep on a stone is a legend. What is certain is that Giotto was already a sought-after painter at a young age, with commissions in several cities.
His principal work is the fresco cycle in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, usually dated to around 1305. The chapel was commissioned by the wealthy Enrico Scrovegni. The walls are covered with scenes from the lives of the Virgin and Christ beneath a deep blue ceiling with golden stars. Images such as The Kiss of Judas and The Lamentation are among the most famous in the history of art. He also painted the Ognissanti Madonna, now in the Uffizi, and frescoes in the Bardi and Peruzzi chapels in Santa Croce in Florence. Whether he painted the famous St Francis cycle in Assisi is disputed.
What is new in Giotto is that people have bodies with weight. They stand on the ground, their clothes fall like real fabric and they move in a space with depth. Most important of all are the emotions. In the Lamentation the mourners bend over Christ, and the angels in the air writhe in despair. The backgrounds are simple, so that attention is drawn to the human drama.
Giotto was married and had several children. He was a successful businessman with a large workshop and worked in Rome, Naples and Padua, among other places. In 1334 he was appointed master builder of Florence Cathedral and designed the campanile, the bell tower, which was completed after his death. He died in Florence in 1337.
His contemporaries already saw him as an innovator. Dante mentions him, and Boccaccio wrote that he brought painting back to life. Later, Masaccio and Michelangelo studied his frescoes. He is therefore regarded as one of the forerunners of the Renaissance and as one of the most important figures in the history of Western painting.