G i o t t o November 16, 2011
Posted by cantueso in art, painting.trackback
In public domain http://espliego.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/giotto-last-judgment-scene-cappella-scrovegni-a-padova.jpg
This is the Last Judgment. As seen from the viewer, on the right there is Satan and hell. On the left you would see those who are going to Heaven. In the center is Christ.
On the left of the painting some parts of the fresco have fallen off, leaving like a brown cloud.
Fresco is water colour applied on fresh lime mixed with sand. When lime sets up, it gets hard and the colours become indelible and luminous.
It is a very large painting, a complete wall in the Arena chapel, also called La Cappella Scrovegni in Padua. And the most famous part of this painting is by now that big bluish gray Satan below.
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In public domain http://espliego.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/giotto-di-bondone-last-judgment-scene-cappella-scrovegni-a-padova-detail-hell.jpg
Satan is overweight because he eats all those little unhappy people that keep falling down to him.
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In public domain http://espliego.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/giotto_hell-fragment.jpg
They are cruelly pushed and dragged down to where he is.
Towards the top of the scene you can again see some parts of the fresco layer missing.
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Giotto’s most famous painting is the one below, where Christ is laid down in his grave:
In public domain http://espliego.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/giotto_-_scrovegni_-_-36-_-_lamentation_the_mourning_of_christ.jpg
This painting is called Lamentation. Along the top there are angels weeping.
Since lime was used, and lime becomes hard in a few hours, the painting shows the sections that were painted each in a day. The painter applies the lime mixed with sand on a surface no larger than he can paint in one day or in one sitting.
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In public domain http://espliego.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/giotto-angels-weeping.jpg
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Finally, a Nativity fresco by Giotto complete with the sheep, the ox and the donkey plus the angels. Giotto often painted the angels as if they had no legs, maybe so that he could put in more angels instead of having his skies full of long floating clothes.
The black patches on Mary’s skirt are probably fresco or goldleaf fallen off.
Look how the little Jesus baby is wrapped up. They used to wrap the babies up like that, and in some countries they still do now. It’s a wonder any survived.
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The Perfect Circle
When Giotto was still an apprentice, he was already admired for his drawings.
According to legend, the Pope sent a messenger who wanted to see some proof of Giotto’s skill. Giotto took a brush and some red paint and painted a circle so perfect that it loooked as if it had been drawn with a compass. This stoy made Giotto more famous than any of his greatest paintings, and even now, some 700 years later, that circle is what is remembered best about him. – (Marcel Proust once said that if people found out what will be remembered about them they would be surprised.)
Some people can do that in pencil, but with a brush and paint it is harder because it has to be done more slowly.
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Giotto lived from 1266 to 1337.
Giotto’s masterwork is the Arena chapel in Padua completed about 700 years ago.
Giotto is classified as Early Renaissance. This means that he may have been one of the first men to try and break out of the mental setting of the Middle Ages in order to do things his own way.
Before that, in the Middle Ages, artists learned only from each other how to paint the virgin, how to do a donkey, without looking at real people or animals. And then, in the Renaissance, the painters looked at the Real Thing so closely that they ended up disecting it.
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Define Middle Ages
The period of growing Catholic and Muslim power. It began with the desintegration of Roman State power in the 5th century.
Define Renaissance
The revival of classical thinking and art in the 14th–16th centuries. That revival put an end to the monopoly held by the Church and marked the beginning of State power.
Define classical
Art and philosophy created by Greece, next taken over by Rome and revived in the Renaissance. (The term renaissance is French and means born again.)
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Looks like those angels keep the tower and air controllers busy. They are definitely violating FAA regulations.
No. You just do not know enough about angelology. They do not get in the way of an airplane. They would protect an airplane and even a kite.
You got them mixed up with geese.
I had never heard of this painter, though I knew about Saint Francis. That Last Judgment must be great to see in its surroundings.
That she finally had no areas in her that was connected to a belief, a preference, a thought, a judgment, an hope.