preview

Art : Giotto Di Bondone And The Italian Renaissance

Decent Essays

Giotto di Bondone

The Italian Renaissance was a significant era for art, because of the many famous artists of extraordinary skill who changed the craft forever. One of the notable figures that emerged from this great timeframe was Giotto di Bondone. Giotto was born around 1266 in Vespignano, Italy. Very little is known about his life as a child. As a thirteen year old boy, he was said to be a prodigy, so he was able to become the apprentice of Florentine Cimabue, a master of art. While di Bondone was traveling, word of his talents spread like wildfire, and he became so well known that his gift was said to be better than that of his masters.. His earliest works were a series of frescoes on the Saint Francis Church of Assisi in the mid 1290’s. As Di Bondone continued to paint the walls of prominent churches and chapels, his talents becoming more and more well known. Three years before his death, the people appointed him the Magnus Magister (The Great Master), the head Florentine architect and the Chief of Public Works. Giotto was believed to be one of the key influences on the Renaissance and Gothic art, because of his trailblazing technique, palette, and style.
In the late 1200’s and early 1300’s, the style of Christian art was comprised of primarily warm colors and smooth, synthetic forms. Giotto’s work was fresh to people’s eyes, because he showed both a full range of colors and realistic looking figures. In the web article, Giotto di Bondone, the writer states, “He gave authentic color to his subjects' clothing, hair and faces, eschewing the accepted standard of dull, nondescript details and all emphasis on the work's sanctity”(www.artible.com). He used a lot of bold greens, along with blues and brighter reds that stood out in a world of paintings filled with “holy” colors, such as oranges and golds. He would often spend hours studying people on the street, taking in the organic movements of the body and habits of emotion. In the book Italian Painting: Creators of the Renaissance, the author talks about Giotto’s piece, “Adoration of the Magi”, saying, “In a general way Giotto’s characters live so intensely that their acts and gestures are arrested, as it were, in mid-course, so as to enable us to glimpse

Get Access