Best pictures of Giotto di Bondone and their description

Words that can be used to describe the work of the great Italian artist Giotto di Bondone are the lines of the poet Arseny Tarkovsky:

I am a man, I am in the middle of the world,

Behind me are myriads of infusorians,

In front of me are a myriad of stars.

I between them lay down in all their growth -

Two shores of the connecting sea,

Two spaces connecting the bridge.

These words characterize not only the writer, but the whole era in which he lived. Giotto's paintings are the very bridge that connected the two stages in the art of painting.

The founder of modern painting

Giotto lived at the turn of two centuries - the 13th and 14th. Exactly the middle of his life fell on this period, and this epoch in the whole world culture is usually called the era of Dante and Giotto. They were contemporaries.

The philosopher Merab Mamardashvili about the paintings of Giotto once said: "Giotto went to the transcendent zero." This complex phrase at one time made many laugh. But if you think about it, you can not say more precisely. After all, Giotto as an artist started from scratch.

Look at the most famous paintings of Giotto. What he did in art, what he offered to art, no one ever did before. He started from scratch, and, perhaps, in this sense every ingenious person goes to a transcendent zero. Michelangelo, Paul Cezanne and Kazimir Malevich did it. They started from the beginning, from scratch. In this sense, and Giotto went to a transcendent zero. Because it can be said quite calmly and confidently: it is with Giotto Bondone that modern European painting begins.

The most famous creations

What do we know about Giotto's paintings? This is the "Adoration of the Magi", "Introduction to the Temple," "The Condition of the Coffin," "The Blessing of Anna," "Crucifixion," "Miracle with the Source." Giotto di Bondone paintings and murals wrote for the Capella del Arena in Padua, for the churches in Florence and Assisi. His handwriting can not be confused with the manner of other artists. Description of pictures Giotto is a retrospective of evangelical parables. He left us the images of Christian saints, such as St. Francis, St. Lavrenty, St. Stefan, John the Theologian , etc.

Giotto's paintings with names besides Padua, Florence and the Vatican are in the catalogs of collections of such museums as Jacques-Andre and the Louvre in France, the National Gallery of Art in Washington and Railay (University of North Carolina), Paris, Germany and the United Kingdom .

Before him, in the European world, an icon or Byzantine painting was accepted. Giotto di Bondone's paintings with names on biblical subjects speak for themselves. But these are not icons at all. This is the famous "Madonna of Onisanti", stored in the Uffizi, and the picture of Giotto "Flight into Egypt".

Making biblical characters corporeal

Biographer of Italian artists Giorgio Vasari tells us the legend that existed at that time: Giotto was a pupil of the artist Cimabue. And in the Uffizi Museum near the two paintings hang, two Madonna - Madonna Cimabue and Madonna Giotto.

When you look at both Madonna and compare them, even if you do not know anything about art, you see a difference not only between the two artists, but between two epochs, between two completely different principles. You see the absolute difference. You understand that they completely differently perceive this world.

The paintings of Cimabue are unusually exquisite, elegant, we can say that he is an artist not just Byzantine, medieval, but Gothic. His Madonna is incorporeal, amazingly beautiful, decorative. Long fingers, long arms do not hold the baby, but make a sign that they are holding it. Her face passes the eastern canon adopted in Byzantine painting: a narrow face, long eyes, a thin nose, sadness in her eyes. This is a flat, ethereal canonical conditional painting of an icon, a face. Not a person, not a type of person, but a face.

And next there is an icon, or, say, already a picture, Giotto. On the throne, encrusted, beautiful throne, in a style that was only then accepted, only then went into fashion. Such inlay with marble. The woman is sitting broad-shouldered, powerful, young, with a blush on the whole cheek. He holds the baby's arms tightly. A beautiful white shirt. The body emphasizes its power. And she looks at us calmly. In her face, there is no suffering. It is full of high human dignity and peace. This is no longer the Madonna, not the icon of the Virgin. This is Madonna in the Italian late sense and understanding of this story. That is, it's Maria, and a beautiful lady.

We can say with confidence that what Giotto did in painting lasted in European fine art before impressionism. It was Giotto who created what in modern language is called composition. What is a composition? This is how the artist sees the plot, then, how he imagines it to himself. He acts as a witness, participant in the event. He creates the illusion that he was personally present.

Participation in plot action

That is, the artist himself is a screenwriter, director and actor of his paintings. His creations are a kind of theater in which actors act, and he is the director of these actors. "I was there! I give the floor, I was present, but it was so, "Giotto almost says with his creations. Is it conceivable for medieval consciousness to say this!

Giotto appears before us as a person who is responsible for what he writes. And his paintings, in particular, "The Kiss of Judas" and "The Flight into Egypt" - are murals written by an eyewitness of the action.

A fresco painted by the artist himself

Around 1303, Giotto received a wonderful offer - an order to paint a small church, which was built in the city of Padua in the Roman Arena. Giogo's biographer, more precisely, one of his biographers Giorgio Vasari leaves very interesting information. He says that Giotto came to paint the Padua church, shortly ahead of his company, that is, his comrades. Just as in the Middle Ages, Andrei Rublev wrote companions, just as in the West the church was painted by an artist who has a great name, comrades, that is, with his art team. "Kiss of Judas" is a fresco that he wrote himself. In all likelihood, this is one of the few of his absolutely author's works, like "Trinity" Rublev, and she really very fully reveals the identity of Giotto.

"Kiss of Judas": description of the painting

And when we look at the fresco "Kiss of Judas", then immediately select the center of the composition with the eyes. The main dramatic events take place in this center. We see Judas embracing Christ, absorbing him. And these two figures are central. We see on the right, how the high priest of the Jerusalem temple entered. He points a finger at Christ. And on the left we see the apostle Peter, who, although he denied three times, while the cock sang three times, but still pulled out a bread knife and cut off their ear. We see him throwing a knife on Judas with this knife, but the crowd blocks the way to him, and if we follow the direction of the high priest's hand and the direction of the knife, we find that these lines converge on the cloak of Judas, just on faces. Therefore, we can say that the center of the composition is not even two figures, connected together, but two faces. From this point it is interesting to read this composition.

Power and tension

Always about Giotto speak with a kind of irony: "What did Giotto discover?". For example, in Farnini's Amarcord, when an art teacher in school asks about what Giotto created, the students chant: "A prospect." This is very funny. After all, Giotto did not create any perspective. This is an incorrect statement. He did not create the perspective, but another space of the picture, where under the space one should understand the action unfolding before the viewer.

Look at the fresco "The Kiss of Judas". There is a crowd of people. And this crowd entered the night. On the dark sky torches, burning to the right and left. You feel movement against the sky. In the dark sky, these lights, the flames vibrate, you feel the excitement and electrification of the crowd. What is interesting in the crowd? The fact that it is by no means indifferent. In this crowd, if you look closely, almost every participant is developed. There are simply incredibly transmitted states.

Polygonity

Giotto was the first, but also the last. He, as they say, not only set, but also solved a huge number of tasks, not just creating the composition "I, Giotto, I see this dramatic decision: here are my characters, this is my chorus!", And when he worked psychologically, when he Still shows in one action a lot of time.

Each of his frescoes causes great astonishment, and even bewilderment. How does a person for one life, without precedents, that is called, go to a transcendent zero, created a clean sheet of modern European art, the composition as a temporary action, as a causal relationship, saturating it with a time and a very large number of psychological colors?

Conclusion

In this article we have more or less thoroughly analyzed only two paintings by Giotto with the names "The kiss of Judas" and "The Madonna of Onisanti". Works of the master can be admired endlessly. They can be watched for hours, but a lifetime is not enough to tell about all the creations of Giotto di Bondone, whose paintings were both time-valuable and in time remained. All of them are creatures of the greatest artist and the person who started from scratch.