Giotto, The Ognissanti Madonna

Art History

Florence

Cimabue, Santa Trinita Madonna
Giotto, St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata
Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel (Part 1 of 4)
Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel, Part 2 of 4
Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel, Part 3 of 4
Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel, Part 4 of 4
Giotto, The Ognissanti Madonna
Giotto's The Entombment of Mary
Andrea Pisano's Reliefs on the Campanile in Florence
Follower of Bernardo Daddi, The Aldobrandini Triptych

Giotto, The Ognissanti Madonna Giotto, The Ognissanti Madonna, 1306-10, tempera on panel, 128 x 80 1/4" (325 x 204 cm). Painted for the Church of Ognissanti, Florence Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris

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Giotto, The Ognissanti Madonna

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[music]
Dr. Steven Zucker: Giotto is not a Renaissance painter
but his laying that foundation
--20 perhaps 30 years after Cimabue painted
the large altar piece for Santa Trinita
Giotto--his student--paints the Madonna and child enthroned as well
that we think came from the Church of Ognissanti in Florence
Dr. Beth Harris: And this is a Mary like none we have seen before
she occupies space--she has a monumentality
and presence--and physicality
Dr. Zucker: It's totally different from anything
that we saw at the end of the 1200s
--if you think about Cimabue or even if you think about Duccio in Siena
--there's kind of delicacy--a kind of elegance
that those are figures that are almost paper thin
--and here Giotto's Madonna is solid--she weighs a lot
--there's no knocking her over
Dr. Harris: No--and it's not just the size of her body
it's also that use of modeling that we see
Dr. Zucker: Light and shadow
--the turn of a body that created by the transition
from highlights to shade
Dr. Harris: Exactly--which we can see in her neck
--around her breasts--pulling the drapery
across toward the Christ child
Dr. Zucker: We see that in the Christ child as well
and even in the angels around her
this is so different from that real sense of flatness
or the sense of drawing
this seems much more sculptural
Dr. Harris: With Giotta--we have a really sense of Mary
sitting inside her throne
--her knees are clearly foreshortened
--if you look back at the Duccio
--she turns her body so that he thighs
are parallel to the picture plane
--but the knees in Giotto's Madonna
come forward toward us creating an illusion of space
Dr. Zucker: Ya--it's true and then of course
there's a little bit more of a rational space
for her to exist in
--this is not a painting that uses linear perspective
but it is a painting that functions as a precursor in some ways
--I mean look for example at the specificness
with which the artist places us--the viewer
in relationship to the architecture that he is portraying
--now if you look at it carefully
clearly we are looking down from the step in the foreground
--but we are looking up at the ceiling of the throne
--and there's a left-right axis as well
--we can see a little bit more of the window
on the right side--so we know that we're actually favored
on the left a little bit--and so it makes sense
that we are just below Christ
and we are just to his left
-so Giotto is placing us in a very particular
point in relation to these divine figures
--and it is making room for us
Dr. Harris: As individuals--as viewers
Dr. Zucker: Giving us a kind of dignity in relationship to the divine
--and that is an inherently Renaissance idea
--and what I think is really remarkable
is that the Old Testament prophets that we saw in the Cimabue
are now brought out of the basement
and they flank the Virgin Mary
--and we can actually see their faces--at least two of them
framed in the wings of the throne itself
--so it's as if Giotto was actually suggesting to us
that a painting can be a kind of window
that we can look into--that we can look through
--and that a painting is a kind of frame
in which we can enter with our eyes
Dr. Harris: That's the reason that Giotto's painting
has a kind of emotional power
--even within this very traditional composition
all of that use of gold--all of these things
that are still Medieval
Giotto is--literally--making room
Dr. Zucker: In a sense--making a space for us in this room
because this a world that we can inhabit
this is place that we know where there are solids
--where there is gravity
--where there is in a sense all
the physical forces that our bodies contend with
--and we're able to inhabit this space
in a much more direct way
than in the previous paintings
Dr. Harris: So she's in heaven but she's still here with us
Dr. Zucker: That basic conflict will power
the Renaissance for the next several hundred years
--how to we bring together our physical experience
and our understanding--our emotional attachment
to the divine
[music]

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