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Art
Giotto's fresco of Christ's nativity graces the walls of the Scrovegni Chapel, also known as the Arena Chapel because of its proximity to the ancient Roman structure in Padua. The fresco depicts Christ as an infant child, and his mother Mary holds him almost as if he were about to fall off the wooden bed upon which they both lay. Giotto places the infant Christ on the far left of the panel and yet the eye is drawn naturally to the swaddled baby because of deft use of linear composition. Its centerpiece is one of the corners of the wooden bed, and the bed's lines lead the eye naturally toward Christ and Mary, both of whom are haloed. Atop the bed, a choir of angels keeps watch over the baby of Bethlehem. The mood of the fresco is tense; the Virgin mother grasps her child, clings to him and gazes at him with a mixture of maternal love and fear. A sense of doom at Christ's inevitable fate pervades the scene, enhanced by the unexpected presence of a gray donkey the butts in below Jesus and Mary.
Nicola Pisano also depicts Christ's nativity on the Baptistry pulpit in Pisa. Unlike Giotto's nativity scene, Pisano's is a marble sculpture, and the different medium lends a different feel to the composition. In Pisano's nativity, the Virgin mother appears old, austere, and detached. She looks away from her infant child in a pose exactly opposite from that of Giotto's Mary who clings desperately to her fated infant. Pisano's Mary is also reclined but her looks off into the distance and not at Jesus. In fact, the baby Jesus floats in a space atop her outstretched body, wrapped tightly in what could just as easily be a sarcophagus as swaddling clothes. Mary's rigid restraint is coupled with the coffin-like imagery to portend Christ's death. The tension in Pisano's piece therefore accomplishes the same thematic goal as Giotto's desperate Mary who clings to her newborn. In contrast to Giotto's sparce composition, Pisano's marble relief is crowded, filled with attendants, angels, and manger animals and imparting a more chaotic tone than Giotto's nativity fresco.
Giotto and Duccio The Arena Chapel (Scrovegni) of Giotto (1303) and Duccio's Maesta (1308) are both masterpieces of medieval European art. The Arena chapel contains the fresco cycle and is indicative of the movement towards a more humanistic view of religiosity, while the maestro is a large altarpiece that includes multiple images. Both have a similar subject but were constructed with divergent intentions and distinctive artistic styles. Giotto di Bondone was a
Art During Renaissance The Evolution of Art During the Renaissance The Renaissance period is defined as a cultural movement that spanned approximately from the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe (Brotton 2006, p. 6). This period in the history of art included the painting, decorative arts and sculpture of the period and for many was considered a
Giotto's Kiss Of Judas Giotto's depiction of the Kiss of Judas, on the wall of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, was painted in the early years of the fourteenth century -- it is a religious illustration, meant to gloss the moment in Christ's Passion depicted in three of the four synoptic Gospels (Matthew 26:47-50; Mark 14:43-45; Luke 22:47-48), wherein Judas Iscariot identifies Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, so that he
Human Figure in Art The Ognissanti Madonna by Giotto, from around 1310. Tempera on panel. Located at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Giotto's work is relevant of the transition period between Cimabue's work in the 13th century, with profound Byzantine influences, including in the figures, and the Early Renaissance of the 14th century in Italy. Stokstad (2004) notes the influences of Cimabue in this work by Giotto, including in terms of
Western Art and Christianity During the past millennium, Western art has been heavily influenced by Christianity. Art is an extension of the many complex thoughts and images that swim within an artist's mind. Because many Western artists have traditionally been raised in a Christian environment, it is difficult for their religious beliefs to be fully separated from their artwork, and oftentimes it is embraced in the works, or a patron has
Question 2: Astronomy in the News What goes up, must come down. This might seem to be a universal principle of logic, and indeed if you throw your car keys in the air, they will come crashing down to the floor on earth. But nearly a "decade ago, astronomers discovered that what is true for your car keys is not true for the galaxies. Having been impelled apart by the force