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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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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. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- I'm assuming that this is an altarpiece that would have been placed up high. Would our perspective have changed as was dicussed in the narrative?(11 votes)
- In the description, it says 1306-10. Does this mean that the piece was started in 1306 and completed in 1310 or that it's not known what the year completed was?(5 votes)
- This type of dating can have different meanings. It may in some cases represent a best guess while more rarely, it will, with more precision, reference start and end dates. Keep in mind that dating something that is more than 700 years old is rarely precise.(5 votes)
- Is there a reason why the shape of the paining is similar to a house? Is there any particular symbolism behind it? For example, showing that the religion is stable, indomitable etc. Has it derived from an arch (and arches being considered also a steady structure)? It can be seen that the "house" shape complements the shape of the throne but now that I come to think of it, I have also seen other paintings and icons in which there is no throne that have the same shape. Thanks is advance for the answer!(5 votes)
- Who is the guy glaring at Jesus from the right corner?(5 votes)
- It probably wasn't meant to be like that(1 vote)
- How were Italian Christian churches laid out during this time period (1300-1400)? Where was the altar located?(4 votes)
- Atit says that it is remarkable that the prophets are now around Mary, but why would Giotto choose to paint it this way? 2:42(2 votes)
- Giotto was trying to make a sense (illusion) of space, as the video mentioned. The prophets, like, Mary, have weight and have space. Compare that to the Cimabue, where the prophets have no illusion of space, and occupy an impossible basement.(2 votes)
- I have noticed in several discussions that the speakers describe a painting as monumental or having monumentality. This happens at aboutin this discussion where Dr. Harris says that the figure of Mary has "monumentality". One can get the intended meaning of this word through context (I think) where Mary is described as having presence and physicality; also Dr. Zucker says Mary is "sculptural" (at about 0:26). Can someone tell me where this use of "monumentality" comes from and what is it's definition? 1:23(2 votes)
- Are the figures on the left of Mary mirror images of those on the right? The are nearly identical.(1 vote)
- what are some notes on these paintings?(1 vote)
- What specific time period was the made in?(1 vote)
Video transcript
(swing piano music) - [Female Narrator] We're in
one of the first galleries in the Uffizi in Florence, in a room filled with enormous images of the Madonna and Child. But the one that's straight ahead of us is by the great Florentine artist Giotto, the "Ognissanti Madonna." And "ognissanti" in
Italian means all saints. - [Male Narrator] It was
commissioned by the Humiliati, a religious order, and wool
merchants, in Florence. The painting is enormous, but it's smaller than the
Duccio and the Cimabue that flank it on the left and the right. It was also produced a little bit later. When Giotto was painting this, he had seen both of these other paintings, and so while we certainly
see many similarities, we also see some important innovations. - [Female Narrator] To me,
the most obvious is Mary, who no longer seems a bit like a cutout on top of the throne, but a figure who has thighs, and buttocks, and who sits within that throne. So we have a sense of
her mass and her weight, and her body taking up space. - [Male Narrator] It's
true that you get a sense, especially if you look at the Cimabue, that you're looking at
a more ethereal figure, that if somehow your hand
could push against her, she would float away
like a piece of paper. Whereas with the Giotto, you get the sense that she would push back, she's solid. - [Female Narrator] But if
you look at the Cimabue, those folds between the legs are indicated by gold lines, gold striations,
and they suggest fabric. But Giotto's figure, that blue drapery that
falls across her lap really looks like heavy wool and fabric. - [Male Narrator] There's no gold in Giotto's representation
of that blue garment, except at the hem. He's indicating the roundness of her body purely through the use
of light and shadow, what the Italians call
chiaroscuro, that is, this modulation that creates an illusion of form turning in space, even though we're looking at
a two-dimensional surface. - [Female Narrator] And
we see that very much in her neck, the left side is in shadow, there's a shadow cast by her chin, and we get a sense of her
breasts under that drapery. - [Male Narrator] But it's
not just the light and shadow that Giotto is interested in. He also creates the sense of reality, of the illusion of dimension, through the architecture of the throne. The wings of the throne
seem to come towards us, and there's a real emphasis on things being in front and in back. We can see that, within those wings, there are windows that are cut, and we can see Old Testament prophets that are framed by those
windows, but they're behind. - [Female Narrator] And those steps seem to move out into our space, as though Mary could stand up and walk into the very
space that we occupy. The painting itself acts
almost like a window through which we view a world that is just as three-dimensional
as our own world. - [Male Narrator] Now,
I wouldn't go so far as to say that they're
actually in our world. This painting is making
use of large areas of gold, meant to express the light of heaven. But there is an interest in rendering the Christ-child, Mary, the Old Testament prophets
in the background, the angels in the foreground, in a space that makes sense to us. And he's doing this in a very precise way. For example, we're clearly
looking down at the steps. We're looking down at the seat, because we can still see the
top of the seat of the throne. But we're looking up at the
ceiling within the throne, and so we know we're lower than that. - [Female Narrator] But we're looking more at the right side of the inside
of the throne than the left. - [Male Narrator] And that's appropriate, because Christ is facing to his right, so he seems to be facing
where we would be oriented. Look at just three angles, the angle of the seat of the throne, the angle at the top of the cutout, and then the angle that's
towards the bottom of the cutout, and you'll notice that that last angle is perfectly horizontal. This is our eye level. - [Female Narrator] And
so Giotto is thinking about our placement in space in relationship to these divine figures. - [Male Narrator] Giotto is working in one of the wealthiest
countries in the world, in the city-state of Florence, and so Giotto's painting
is a wonderful opportunity to understand this transition
from the late medieval to what will become the Renaissance. (swing piano music)