Assessing Assisi

First off I want to talk about how top notch our tour guide, Marco was. He was invested in interacting with us as students and he was interested in having our particular fields of study connect with his tour. It was wonderful. He did an outline of the time period of the separate work for us by classifying each floor as a particular age in life. For example the work in the lower chapel was a baby because it was crawling away from the Byzantine period. There was still evidence of the influence previous to the renaissance in the art work. The details were not there, like in the bed of the pope or in the extremities of the body (toes and feet). There is no movement in the work either. The animals painted with St. Francis look like they are stationary and incapable of taking flight (Marco called them chickens). It is a step away from the Byzantine restrictions on art because the subject matter of the frescoes expanded beyond Mary, Jesus and the saints. In the side chapels is the artwork of Cimabue and Giotto. Their art work is considered to be the teenagers breaking away from the Byzantine art according to Marco. In other classes I have learned to believe that Giotto is more of an adult artist in his technique rather than at the teen stage. The difference between Cimabue and Giotto, as I have talked about in a previous post, is all in the detail. However I think that Cimabue had something on Giotto in this Basilica. I find it to be so different than the one we saw at the Uffizi Gallery. I was a little incredulous when I saw it. The figures had so much depth to them! If I had to choose one of the artists to accredit to this work I would have been wrong. I like this piece more than I do Giotto’s “Ognissanti Madonna.” I feel like Cimabue’s is more “grown-up” so to speak than Giotto’s work. It is darker also which gives it a more somber feel.  I think what makes me appreciate this piece more than the Giotto one, or Cimabue’s piece in the Uffizi for that matter, is the lack of gold paint. The gold is overkill. I understand that it was a popular element in renaissance works because it is showing the glory and wealth of the patron but it gives no room for depth. Having the background and the halos both painted with gold makes it hard to differentiate the perspective. I like the fact that this Cimabue has depth and perspective through Mary’s throne and the placement of the angels that are surrounding it. There are no “grape-heads” in this painting. I also appreciate that it is balanced without being symmetrical. Saint Francis on the side is not symmetrical with the other figures; it appears as if he was stuck in there last minute. However, it does not seem like the side with Mary and the angels is more crowded. The wings of the angels seem dainty and almost opaque as well. They are quite realistic. Baby Jesus looks more like a real baby in comparison to Giotto’s baby Jesus. Usually in this period when Jesus is portrayed as a child he is given the face of an old man. This shows the wisdom of him. However, Cimabue’s baby, while still looking older than a child, has a more baby like quality to his face than Giotto’s does. One thing I do not like about this piece is the iridescent quality of Mary’s halo, while the other saints do not have that opaqueness. You can see the lines of the boarder in her halo while you cannot see the outlines of things behind the other halos. That is similar to the gold halos that Giotto painted. You could see nothing behind them. The placement and setup of Giotto’s throne is more realistic. Cimabue’s looks like it is rickety and that it might fall apart. It does not look real. The thing that really interested me about Cimabue was his desire to paint something accurate. He took the stories of St. Francis and compiled them to make the figure standing on the right of this painting. I think that is something to give him merit in the renaissance. He wanted everything to be correct. There was no falsity in his portrayal. I appreciate that about this piece.

Cimabue's Madonna

Giotto's Madonna