Author: Gabriella Landau (Page 3 of 3)

In today’s class, we continued looking at Cimabue, Enthroned Madonna, and Child made in 1280-90. We compared this painting with Giotto’s work made 20-30 years later named Madonna Enthroned. Giotto replicated what Cimabue did, evolving his techniques and style to fit the next generation. For example, in Cimabue’s piece, there was no perspective. The arches were drawn at the wrong angles, which made parts of the painting look vertical rather than horizontally extending back. Giotto had a sense of perspective in his painting, he also used more highlights to make the painting look fuller and have the virgin and her baby stand out. These artworks are next to each other in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence to emphasis what a generation can do to a painting.

We then looked more into Giotto and some of his other popular pieces. He worked in Padua, some think, designing the model of the Scrovegni Chapel and creating the masterpiece of murals on the inside.

Traveling to Siena, Florence’s biggest rival, we looked at the Duccio di Buoninsegna and his Madonna Enthroned, made in 1308-11. This artwork was massive but now has been broken into smaller pieces, which are widely distributed worldwide.

Wrapping up the class, we moved into the 15th century Art in Northern Europe and talked about the Limbourg brothers. John, the Duke of Berry, was a famous art collector and created a manuscript book with 12 scenes, each a zodiac sign to distinguish between the different months.

In class today we were introduced to the survey of the Western art regions from the renaissance to today. We started off by looking at what was Italy made up of before it was called Italy. During the time in the 13th and 14th century, religion was very important in the influence of making art and designing churches. We looked into Sicily and Florence and what their town squares looked like. The town squares connect all the way back to the ancient greeks and romans and how they created forums in living spaces and public areas. Some other important sites in a town square were treasures (statues), churches, shops, and a town hall. We looked more into the details of the town hall like the crenellation structure, and the open windows. The idea was to make the town hall look strong and powerful.  

We also looked at a piece from Saint Francis and discussed his influence in Italy. He wrote “Canticle of Brother Sun” in 1224 and it was significant because it was the first ever written in Italian rather than Latin. He died in 1226 and 2 years later was canonized in 1228. 

I look forward to talking and learning more about the history of art in Italy, and Western regions and I am excited to get more of a sense of where art in the West evolved to todays time.