DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: We're in
the Gemaldegalerie in Berlin looking at a really spectacular
panel painting by Giotto. This is "The
Entombment of Mary." And it shows the
Virgin Mary tenderly being lowered into her tomb,
but it also, simultaneously, shows her spirit rendered
as an infant being cradled by Christ in Heaven. DR. BETH HARRIS: It was made
for the church of the Ognissanti or All-Saints
Church in Florence. And it's certainly one of the
jewels of their collection. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: It's a
wonderful representation of the qualities that made
Giotto such an important artist in the early 14th century. DR. BETH HARRIS:
In the late 1200s, the tradition that
Giotto was coming out of is a Byzantine tradition where
the figures are elongated, where there's an emphasis
on gold and patterning, where the figures seem
really distant from us. And there's no real
interest in their bodies as existing
three-dimensionally in space. But that's exactly
what Giotto gives us. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: Figures that
have a sense a volume, of mass, of solidity, of gravity. But more than that, you've got a
kind of psychological intensity and interaction that
makes these figures seem as if they are
autonomous in the world. DR. BETH HARRIS: So
let's take, for example, Saint Peter, who's
engrossed in reading. And if we look at the
robe that he wears, we can see that Giotto
has moved from light to dark to indicate the folds
of the drapery and a sense of the figure being round
and three-dimensional. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: You can see
the way in which the figure's elbow is pressing into his
waist, gathering that cloth, creating those folds. And there is really
a sense, then, of the reality of
that moment, something that we recognize as
our own elbows have pressed into our sides. DR. BETH HARRIS:
Look at how gently she's being lowered
into the tomb. And the look on the
face of the apostle who lowers her body, looking
into her eyes so lovingly. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: The
intimacy between them can be seen again between
the spirit of Mary in the body of the
child and Christ. Their faces are close. They look at each other. DR. BETH HARRIS:
And it's also a kind of inversion of the
image of Mary and Christ that we usually
see where Mary is shown holding Christ as a child. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
And look at the way that the representation of
Mary's soul, the infant, has its light drapery
swirl around it. It's just a beautiful kind of
tender rendering by the artist. Just to the right
of Christ, you see a figure bending over slightly. That's Saint Andrew, who
is sprinkling holy water on the dead body
of Christ's mother. But perhaps my favorite figure
is just to the right of that. You can see in back
of the angels who are holding tall
candles, there's a figure in a kind
of yellow white gold. His cheeks are puffed out. And if you look closely,
in his right hand, he's holding high a censer. That is he's
distributing incense, and it seems as if he's trying
to blow it towards Mary. DR. BETH HARRIS:
Just to the right, another angel has its mouth
open, as though she's speaking. And two angels just
to the right of that seem to be engaged
in conversation. So while this image is very
formal and hierarchical, with Christ in the center
larger than all the figures, it's at the same time
informal and natural. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: That
sense of the natural comes across so well
in the conversation between those angels. The angel who stands
in front, look at the way in which the
thumbs of that angel are hooked into its
belt, into its pockets. There is this sort of wonderful
sense of total informality there. DR. BETH HARRIS: In
fact, that angel also looks like she's about to speak. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
This is a painting about Mary leaving the physical
realm and becoming spiritual. But it's this kind of
intimacy, this kind of detail of individual actions
through which Giotto creates this fabulous sense of reality.