Gothic Painting

Giotto moved painting forward by adding naturalism to his work and creating paintings that exist in a physical world, unlike the stylized paintings of his predecessors. Even so, there are still many medieval artistic elements and symbolism in his work. Giotto infused emotion into the his paintings, his subjects demonstrate a variety of emotional reactions within their narratives. One only needs to examine the devastating sorrow of his Lamentation, or the intimacy of the kiss in the Meeting at the Golden Gate, to see the humanity in his art. According to stories recounted by the writer Giovanni Boccaccio, Giotto was a pleasant person with a humorous demeanor. He was comfortable around intellectuals and kings, he was close friends of Dante, and also quick-witted. “Giotto's love of humanity was perhaps the source of that innovation of which so startled the world of art—the representation of living persons.”¹

It is impossible to discuss Giotto and his work without examining his masterpiece at the Scrovegni Chapel, also called the Arena Chapel, because it exists at the site of a former Roman arena. Enrico Scrovegni built the Chapel as atonement for his family’s sin of usury, or high-interest money lending. Giotto created the frescos in 1305, which contain numerous narrative scenes related to the life of Mary and Christ. Composed in three registers with the top register concerning the life of Christ’s Grandparents and Mary, the middle register the life and ministry of Christ, and the lower, the Passion of Christ. The narratives are divided by faux marble inlay, painted in pink, white and green. Paintings of virtues and vices run along the bottom walls, each virtue correlating to a vice on the opposite wall. The vice and virtue procession lead to the exit and the monumental painting of theLast Judgment. The Last Judgment gives visitors a chance to reflect on their salvation before entering the outside world. Full of imagery inspired by Dante, we see the usual blessed and damned souls facing their respective judgments. We even find Enrico Scrovegni presenting a model of the Chapel to the Virgin Mary in an attempt to sway the decision in his favor. 

Giotto’s work in the Chapel demonstrates many popular Medieval Christian symbols. Like Nichola Pisano’s Pisa Pulpit, his work shows the influence of the Golden Legend, as well as other apocryphal scripts. The top tier of the fresco cycle concerning Christ’s grandparents and Mary’s early life are derived from such texts. We can also find a common Medieval analogy in the Nativity of Mary. Mary was symbolically associated with architecture, as a structure built by God to house Christ. Mary is referred to as the thalamus, or the bedroom and the bridal chamber, constructed to house the eternal Bridegroom. Indeed, this is the same term that is connected to the human brain, its name was derived from “the ground plan of a Greek house, with the bridal chamber at its heart – emphasizing the central role.”² Mary, as the thalamus, stresses her essential role in salvation. Mary was also viewed as a tabernacle, a place for storing the body of Christ. The Nativity of Mary takes place in a thalamus, an architectural bed-chamber. Architecture is often a secondary element in Giotto’s work and usually appears as a background like a theatrical set. The architecture dominates this scene, likely a visual connection to Mary as architecture or thalamus. The second layer of this metaphor is the concept of bread passed into the thalamus. In the Nativity of Mary, the infant Mary is wrapped in cloth that makes her look like bread. She is passed to her mother Anna. At the door, a visitor passes a loaf of bread to an attendant in much the same manner. The bread passes into the thalamus. Giotto infuses his work with these juxtapositions, within the same composition, as well as between pieces within a series. For example, in the Presentation of Mary, we find a man attempting to carry a basket of bread through the door of the temple. 

The idea of juxtaposition is a running theme in Giotto’s Arena Fresco series. Paintings often relate to another painting in the series, connected through visual or symbolic relationships. We share in the warmth of the Virgin Mary caressing and looking into the face of the infant Jesus in the Nativity. Giotto also invites us to share in her sorrow as she caresses the face and body of her dead son in Lamentation. Two scenes as bookends of the humanity of Christ. In other narratives, there are connecting companion paintings. The Pact of Judas and the Visitation. The Expulsion of Joachim and the Meeting at the Golden Gate. The Sacrifice of the Innocents and the Mocking of Christ. The kiss in the Meeting at the Golden Gate, and the Betrayal of Judas. The images work to complement one another to tell a larger narrative regarding the life, ministry, and death of Christ. 

Giotto also shows a reverence for Classical art, and we can find numerous images in his work borrowed from classical sources. In Joachim Returning to His Flocks, Joachim is similar to a figure on a Neo-Attic Crater at Pisa. The same vase that inspired Nichola Pisano while working on his famous pulpit in Pisa. In the Meeting at the Golden Gate, there is a mysterious cloaked female. This figure could be inspired by a mourner on the Roman Sarcophagus of Protesilaus. A mourner at the gates of Jerusalem is a foreshadow of events to come. St. John’s dramatic outstretched arms in the Lamentation can be also be traced to a Roman sarcophagus featuring the Death of Meleager. Likewise, in the Vision of Joachim, one of the shepherds shares the casual pose of a figure from an Early Christian Sarcophagus. The examples cited above point to the interest artists such as Giotto had in classical works of art, studying them, likely sketching them, and letting their inspiration seep into their work. 

Giotto lived with one foot in the Medieval era, and one foot striding forward into the Renaissance. While retaining many of the Medieval religious and symbolic devices of his age, he broke away from the elongated, stylized figures of his immediate predecessors. Through his keen observation of nature and the use of light and shadow, he created images with physical weight and reality. He simplified the settings of his paintings, focusing on the subjects, like actors on a stage, they tell emotionally charged stories to all who see them. Giotto dipped his torch in the flames of the Medieval artists Cimabue and Duccio, then used that torch to ignite the fire of Renaissance painting. 

1. Whiting, Mary Bradford. “The Aspirations of Giotto.” The Sewanee Review, vol. 30, no. 4, 1922, pp. 399–410. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/27533590.

2.Scholpp, Steffen, and Andrew Lumsden. “Building a bridal chamber: development of the thalamus.” Trends in neurosciences vol. 33,8 (2010): 373-80

OTHER SOURCES

“Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel (Article).” Khan Academy, Khan Academy,
Kahn Academy Scrovegni Chapel

Ladis, Andrew. “The Legend of Giotto's Wit and the Arena Chapel.” The Art Bulletin, vol. 68, no. 4, 1986, pp. 581–596. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/3051042

Telpaz, Anne Markham. “Some Antique Motifs in Trecento Art.” The Art Bulletin, vol. 46, no. 3, 1964, pp. 372–376. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/3048187.

Stokstad, Marilyn, “Medieval Art” Second Edition, Routledge, 2018, Print

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