The words that can indicate the work of the great Italian artist Giotto di Bondone are the lines of the poet Arseny Tarkovsky:
I'm a man, I'm in the middle of the world
Behind me are myriad ciliates,
Before me are a myriad of stars.
I lay between them in all my height -
Two shores connecting the sea,
Two space connecting 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 era in the entire 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 transcendental zero." This complicated phrase at one time made many laugh. But if you think about it, it’s impossible to say more precisely. After all, Giotto as an artist began from scratch.
Look at the most famous paintings by Giotto. What he did in art, what he offered to art, no one had ever done before him. He started from scratch, and maybe, in this sense, every brilliant person goes into a transcendental zero. Michelangelo, Paul Cezanne and Kazimir Malevich did this. They started from the beginning, from scratch. In this sense, Giotto went into a transcendental zero. Because you can say absolutely calmly and confidently about him: it is with Giotto Bondone that modern European painting begins.
The most famous creations
What do we know the paintings of Giotto? This is “The Adoration of the Magi”, “Introduction to the Temple”, “Position in the Sepulcher”, “Blessing of Anna”, “Crucifixion”, “Miracle with a source”. Giotto di Bondone painted and frescoes for the chapel del Arena in Padua, for churches in Florence and Assisi. His handwriting cannot be confused with the manner of other artists. Description of Giotto's paintings is a retrospective of the gospel parables. He left us the images of Christian saints, such as St. Francis St. Lawrence Stephen, John the Evangelist , etc.
Giotto's paintings with names other than Padua, Florence and the Vatican are in collections of collections of museums such as Jacqumar-Andre and the Louvre in France, the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Railay (University of North Carolina), Paris, Germany and the United Kingdom .
Before him, the European world adopted the icon or Byzantine painting. The paintings by Giotto di Bondone with names on biblical subjects speak for themselves. But these are by no means icons. This is the famous “Madonna Onisanti”, stored in the Uffizi, and Giotto’s picture “Flight to Egypt”.
Biblical Characterization
The biographer of Italian artists, Giorgio Vasari, tells us a legend that existed at that time: Giotto was a student of the artist Cimabue. And in the Uffizi Museum, two paintings hang nearby, two Madonnas - Madonna Cimabue and Madonna Giotto.
When you look at both Madonnas and compare them, even if you do not know anything about art, you see the difference not only between two artists, but also between two eras, between two completely different principles. You see the absolute difference. You understand that they perceive this world in completely different ways.
The paintings of Cimabue are unusually refined, elegant, we can say that he is not just a Byzantine, medieval artist, but a Gothic one. His Madonna is ethereal, amazingly beautiful, decorative. Long fingers, long arms do not hold the baby, but make a sign that they are holding it. The eastern canon adopted in Byzantine painting conveys her face: a narrow face, long eyes, a thin nose, sadness in the eyes.
This is a flat ethereal canonical conditional painting of an icon, a face. Not a person, not a personality type, but a face.
And next to it is an icon, or, say, a picture, Giotto. On a throne, an inlaid, beautiful throne, in a style that was only then adopted, only then became fashionable. Such a marble inlay. A woman is sitting broad-shouldered, powerful, young, with a blush all over her cheek. Holds the baby hands tightly. Lovely white shirt. The body emphasizes its power. And she calmly looks at us. In her face there is no suffering. It is full of high human dignity and peace. This is not the Madonna, not the icon of the Virgin. This is Madonna in the Italian late sense and understanding of this plot. That is, it is both Mary and the Beautiful Lady.
It is safe to say that what Giotto did in painting lasted in European art until impressionism. It was Giotto who created what is called composition in modern language. What is a composition? This is how the artist sees the plot, the way he as he imagines it. He acts as a witness, a participant in the event. He creates the illusion that he was personally present.
Storytelling
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 directed by these actors - an artist. "I was there! I give my word, I was present at the same time, but it was like that, ”Giotto practically says with his creations. Well, is it conceivable for a medieval consciousness to say such a thing!
Giotto appears to us as a person who is responsible for what he writes. And his paintings, in particular, “The Kiss of Judah” and “Flight into Egypt,” are murals painted by an eyewitness to the action.
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. Biographer Joto, or rather, one of his biographers, Giorgio Vasari, leaves very interesting information. He says that Giotto came to paint the Padua Church, briefly ahead of his company, that is, his comrades. In the same way as Andrei Rublev wrote companions in the Middle Ages, just like in the West the painters, who have a big name, painted companions, that is, with their art team. “The Kiss of Judah” is a fresco that he painted himself. In all likelihood, this is one of the few of his absolutely original works, like The Trinity by Rublev, and she really very fully reveals the identity of Giotto.
“Kiss of Judah”: description of the painting
And when we look at the fresco “Kiss of Judah”, we immediately highlight the center of the composition with our eyes. The main dramatic events take place in this center. We see Judas embracing Christ, embracing 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 recanted three times, while the cock crowed three times, still pulled out a bread knife and cut off his ear. We see how he throws himself at Judas with this knife, but the crowd blocks his path, and if we follow the direction of the high priest’s hand and the direction of the knife, we will find that these lines converge above Judas’s cloak, just on their faces. Therefore, we can say that the center of the composition is not even two figures connected together, but two faces. From this point on, it’s interesting to read this composition.
Energy and Tension
They always speak of Giotto with a certain irony: “What did Giotto discover?” For example, in “Amarcord” by Fellini, when an art teacher asks what Giotto created at school, the students shout “Perspective” in unison. This is very funny. After all, Giotto did not create any perspective. This is a false statement. He did not create a perspective, but another space of the picture, where space should be understood as an action unfolding in front of the viewer.
Take a look at the Judas Kiss fresco. There is a crowd of people. And this crowd entered the night. In the dark sky torches burning to the right and left. You feel the movement against the sky. In the dark sky, these lights, flames sway, you feel the excitement and electrification of the crowd. What is interesting in the crowd? The fact that she is by no means indifferent. In this crowd, if you look carefully, almost every participant is developed. There are simply incredibly transmitted conditions.
Multi-temporality
Giotto was the first, but also the last. He, as they say, not only posed, but also solved a huge number of tasks, not just creating the composition “I, Giotto, I see this dramatic solution like this: here are my characters, here is my choir!”, And when I worked through it psychologically, when he still shows in one action multi-temporality.
Each of his frescoes causes great amazement, and even bewilderment. How did a person in one life, without precedents, which is said to have gone into transcendental zero, created from scratch modern European art, composition as a temporary action, as a cause-effect relationship, saturated with its simultaneity and a very large number of psychological shades?
Conclusion
In this article, we have more or less detailed analyzed only two paintings by Giotto with the names “Kiss of Judah” and “Madonna Onisanti”. The works of the master can be admired endlessly. You can watch them for hours, but your whole life will not be enough to talk about all the creations of Giotto di Bondone, whose paintings were both valuable and remained in time. All of them are creations of the greatest artist and man who started from scratch.