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Europe 1300 - 1800
Course: Europe 1300 - 1800 > Unit 2
Lesson 2: Florence, the Late Gothic- Florence in the Late Gothic period, an introduction
- Dante’s Divine Comedy in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance art
- Cimabue, Santa Trinita Madonna
- Giotto, The Ognissanti Madonna
- Cimabue, Santa Trinita Madonna & Giotto's Ognissanti Madonna
- Giotto, Ognissanti Madonna (quiz)
- Giotto, St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata
- Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel
- The Arena Chapel (and Giotto's frescos) in virtual reality
- Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel (part 1)
- Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel (part 2)
- Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel (part 3)
- Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel (part 4)
- Giotto, Arena Chapel
- Giotto, The Entombment of Mary
- A rare embroidery made for an altar at Santa Maria Novella
- Laudario of Sant’Agnese
- Andrea Pisano's reliefs on the Campanile in Florence
- The Ponte Vecchio (“Old Bridge”) in Florence
- Florence in the 1300s
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Cimabue, Santa Trinita Madonna
Cimabue, Maesta of Santa Trinita, 1280-1290, tempera on panel, 151 1/2 x 87 3/4" (385 x 223 cm), Uffizi, Florence Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- What is the Christ child holding in his left hand?(22 votes)
- I believe he is holding a scroll. This is a symbol of authority. You'll see it in other works during this period.(24 votes)
- At, Dr. Zucker says that Christ was a little frightening to the medieval mind. Why was the idea of Christ terrifying? 2:45(11 votes)
- From the author:The terrifying belief was that at the end of time, Christ would judge all the souls that had ever lived. He would determine who was blessed and who was damned for eternity.(21 votes)
- what is that term he used? 5:42(10 votes)
- "...and the striations, those gold lines that you were speaking about, help to emphasize that almost two-dimensionality of those figures, but there are traces of chiaroscuro in the neck and the nose..."
From http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/glossary.html:"An Italian word meaning light and dark that refers to the modulation of shading in order to produce an illusion of three-dimensional form. In the context of painting, it is sometimes referred to as modeling."(11 votes)
- At aroundDr. Zucker mentions that Vasari "was certainly not a careful art historian", which I assume means that in this particular observation, Vasari has been a bit presumptuous in making such a substantial connection to later naturalism. But, inspired by these videos, I was planning on reading some of Vasari's work and wanted to know if I should be weary about what he has to say? Anything particular I should watch out for or simply caveat lector? 1:08(8 votes)
- Vasari is wonderful to read. He is entertaining and you will learn a lot about his time. For a long time his was one of the only sources we had available to us and his stories too often went unquestioned. As we learned to read more critically and as research uncovered additional resources we have learned to take what he wrote less as a history and more as a document of its time full of his loyalties and the skewed perspective of a 16th century Florentine.(12 votes)
- What does the reviewer mean by velocity in art terms? 1:54(9 votes)
- It refers to the lines that lead your eyes into space. While not true linear perspective, these lines serve as orthogonals, and ultimately point toward the main figures..(9 votes)
- The faces of the angels and the madonna and christ within the painting all seem rather guarded and emotionless - do you think this is done intentionally by the artist? What do you think he was trying to do? They seem to contrast heavily with the faces of the men at the bottom of the painting.(7 votes)
- In the Middle Ages artists were not allowed to express the emotions of the people in their paintings the way they wanted. The Pope and the bishops had rules that faces of the people could have little expression. Also at the time artists did not put very much depth to their paintings. We see here that Cimabue has slightly broken the rules by giving the prophets a confused look and also he gave the painting depth.(4 votes)
- Are the Angels wearing earrings?(3 votes)
- if you look a little closer those are the ends of a headdress, see how the color of the ends matches up with the color of the part of the headdress that's sticking out of the hair on the forehead.(4 votes)
- What does the third man from the left have on his head?(3 votes)
- That's a crown, which identifies King David.
The four men, from left to right, are commonly identified as: the prophet Jeremiah, the patriarchs Abraham and King David, and the prophet Isaiah.(5 votes)
- Why did artists always choose to dress up Mary, though it's likely she was a simpleton and would never dress in such luxury?(1 vote)
- Possibly it is because they are representing their truth, their knowledge/understanding, their feelings/emotions/devotion, their art -- in their time, in their culture, in their unique way --
I would be curious to see your reference for "Mary as a simpleton"(5 votes)
- What does tempera mean?(3 votes)
- tempera [ˈtɛmpərə]
n
1. (Fine Arts & Visual Arts / Art Terms) a painting medium for powdered pigments, consisting usually of egg yolk and water
2. (Fine Arts & Visual Arts / Art Terms)
a. any emulsion used as a painting medium, with casein, glue, wax, etc., as a base
b. the paint made from mixing this with pigment
3. (Fine Arts & Visual Arts / Art Terms) the technique of painting with tempera
[from Italian phrase pingere a tempera painting in tempera, from temperare to mingle; see temper]
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003
from> http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tempera(3 votes)
Video transcript
(soft jazzy music) - [Steven] We're in the Uffizi in Florence looking at a really tall painting. This is the Madonna and
Child Enthroned by Cimabue, sometimes known as the
Santa Trinita Madonna, and that's because it was commissioned by a confraternity that was associated with the Church of Santa
Trinita in Florence. - [Beth] When you walk into this room, you are confronted with
three enormous images of the Virgin and Child Enthroned, similar in many ways, but
also different in many ways. - [Steven] All three panel
paintings are enormous. The Virgin Mary is seated on a throne. The Christ child is seated
on her lap on her left side and he's shown blessing in
each of the three images. Now there's a reason
that these are similar. The painting that we're
looking at by Cimabue may have been commissioned
by this confraternity for lay people. These are people who
were probably excluded from the most sacred part of the church and were intent with paintings like this on creating a spiritual focus within the more public part of the church that they could occupy. And they wanted a painting
very much like a painting that had recently been produced
for another confraternity, that is Duccio's Rucellai Madonna. - [Beth] There was a sense of competition. One of the obvious things that makes this painting different to me is that here, the Virgin Mary,
instead of holding Christ with her right hand, gestures toward him to say this is our Savior,
this is the path to salvation. - [Steven] But Mary is the largest figure, and this is a reflection of
her increasing importance at the end of the medieval
period, what is often referred to as the cult of the Virgin Mary. In France and Italy,
Mary is increasingly seen as the intercessor, as a bridge to Christ. Christ was too aloof, too powerful, but Mary was seen as more accessible. - [Beth] There was a way in
which we could appeal to Mary in order to have Christ hear our prayers. - [Steven] Christ seems to
be responding to our prayers. His fingers are in the
position of blessing. He holds with his other hand a scroll, a reference perhaps to the Old Testament, to the ancient Judaic tradition. - [Beth] To the idea that
the Old Testament prophets had prophesied the coming
of a Savior for mankind and Christ is understood as that Savior. - [Steven] And that's why Cimabue's paints four Old Testament prophets at
the bottom of this painting. - [Beth] And we recognize them as prophets because they hold scrolls. - [Steven] The stylization
of the human body and of the throne of the forms in general, what we're seeing is an
adaptation of the style of the East, of the Byzantine, the long fingers, the
impossibly long body. But here, we're at this
critical moment in Italy where there's an increasing interest in bringing the spiritual down to earth. - [Beth] While we do have a sense that the throne is
somewhat three-dimensional, the angels move back behind the throne, so we do have a sense of a foreground and a little bit of a background. And if we look closely at the gold, it gives us a sense of
the folds of the drapery. - [Steven] I see that
especially around her forehead. Look at the way that
there seem to be folds that crease in and out,
where highlights of gold alternate with recessionary
areas in shadow. - [Beth] And I see it especially around her knees, her lap, her belly. - [Steven] But all of
those gold striations are also highly decorative, so
there is a kind of conflict. There are these efforts at
creating a sense of dimension, a sense of volume, a sense of even mass. At the same time, there are aspects of this
painting that work against that, that create a sense of two-dimensionality. And what we'll see as we move from Cimabue to his most famous student, Giotto, is an increasing interest
in favoring illusionism. - [Beth] What we're seeing
here in the late 1200s and in the 1300s is the birth
of a new kind of painting in Western Europe, this
influence from the Byzantine, from the East, the increasing
naturalism that we see in Gothic sculpture
coming together in Italy, creating divine figures who
are newly accessible to us. (soft jazzy music)