Cimabue, Giotto, and the Origins of Modern Western Art

Today, in many Italian shops, there are certain crayons (pastelli a cera) available under the brand name 'Giotto'. On the packaging of some of the older versions of these crayons is depicted a man leaning casually against a rock, watching a younger boy drawing a sheep onto a slab of stone. The former is Cimabue and the latter is Giotto, and this scene represents the popular legend, circulated through Vasari, that when Cimabue was returning to Florence from the Mugello - one of the nearby Tuscan valleys - he came across the young Giotto drawing the sheep, dismounted to watch the boy continue, and was so impressed by his work that he invited him to come to Florence to study the art of painting. Thus the origins of modern painting began. 

Giotto's legacy lives on in artistic materials, along with his masterpieces!

Cimabue (1240-1302) essentially set in train a revolution that led to greater humanness or 'naturalism' in religious art. Before him Italian art took most of its inspiration from the more stern and distanced Byzantine tradition (known locally as the Italo-Byzantine style). I attended a lecture by the British Institute's Head of History of Art, Jeremy Boudreau (all images in this post come from his fantastic presentation), who excellently demonstrated this by comparing a Cimabue crucifix with one from the late 12th Century on display in the Museo di San Pietro, Pisa. 

Cimabue's Crucifix captures the emotional and physical effect of crucifixion on a human being

We can see that Cimabue far more successfully captures the physical and emotional reality of crucifixion: there is the s-shaped curvature of Christ's body, lending the figure a realistic centre of gravity (as opposed to the almost relaxed figure of his predecessor's work), and, perhaps more importantly, the lowered head with a pained facial expression typical of a Christus patiens (suffering Christ). This achievement, along with the absence of competing narratives surrounding Christ's body, makes the figure of Christ more worldly; he is a human being as well as a divine one. This echoes theological developments of the time, since the 13th Century saw the proliferation of the Mendicant Orders (in particular the Franciscan and Dominican orders) which often encouraged the empathy of worshipers with the illustration of Biblical subjects, often drawing on alternative, apocryphal Gospels such as the Medieval Golden Legend. 

Giotto (1270-1337) took this artistic innovation still further, which Jeremy showed in the differences between their representations of the Maestà, or Madonna enthroned with the Christ child. In Giotto's work, the figures are more delicate, and even the crowd surrounding the Virgin is comprised of distinguishable individuals with clear facial expression. This is contrasted with the slightly monolithic - 'cookie cut-out' as Jeremy put it - nature of Cimabue's faces. Note also the way Christ sits realistically upon the Virgin's knee, where he is held tenderly. The mechanics of this position are far harder to imagine through Cimabue's rendering of the scene, and so this speaks to a further development of the changes in technique and attitude taking place.

Note the distinguishable individual figures around the Madonna in Giotto's Maestà, as well as the Madonna tenderly holding the child on her knee

Giotto and Cimabue received critical success even in their lifetimes, which is why Dante says in his Purgatorio (canto 11): 'Credette Cimabue ne la pittura/tener lo campo, e ora ha Giotto il grido' (Cimabue thought he held the field in painting, and now Giotto has all the acclaim). Indeed, their innovation continued through the work of Giotto's pupil Taddeo Gaddi, famous for the Baroncelli chapel in Santa Croce. 

This is, it must be said, a rather brief account of two the legacy of these two incredibly influential artists, as they continue to elicit constant scholarship and fascination in equal measure, but it is a start, and I hope to understand the context of this revolution better after seeing some of their works for myself. Thankfully, one is spoilt for choice of places to find these artists' work in Florence, be they in churches or galleries. It is difficult for a modern mind to imagine that the desire for greater emotional and physical naturalism in art could have been revolutionary, but so it was once, and it is Cimabue and Giotto whom we have to thank for this legacy.