Biography:
Giotto was only nine years old when the painter Cimabue found him drawing pictures of sheep on the rock wall of a pasture. After some discussion with Giotto’s father, Cimabue took Giotto home with him as an apprentice. Giotto bloomed as an artist in his own right in Cimabue’s studios, and then he left to make his own fortune.
Giotto changed the world of art. You see, most paintings in his time were very two-dimensional. The people looked flat. Most works of art were religious icons, flat depictions of people drawn with no movement or emotion that represented people who were Biblical characters or saints. Giotto used color and space to present people who were performing actions. His colors are brilliant, but they don’t transition as smoothly as in the works of later artists. He introduced nonhuman living beings into art: flowers, dogs, and other creatures. He also presented some of the first paintings of landscapes.
Giotto was an artistic ground-breaker in painting. He showed the public that everyday things are worth replicating so that they would be remembered for a long time.
Art:
1: The Annunciation
a: By Giotto – Web Gallery of Art: Image Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15884066
b: By Giotto – Web Gallery of Art: Image Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15884067
2: Visitation By Giotto – Web Gallery of Art: Image Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12219735
3: Nativity: By Giotto – Web Gallery of Art: Image Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15884070
4: Presentation: By Giotto – Web Gallery of Art: Image Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15884073
5: Adoration: By Giotto – http://www.scienceblogs.de/astrodicticum-simplex/2008/12/der-stern-von-bethlehem.php, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=94612
Resources:
Website:
Video:
Inside a Chapel of Giotto’s art:
Books:
- Giotto (Getting to Know the Word Greatest Artists) By Venezia
- A Boy Named Giotto by Guarnieri
- The Glorious Impossible by Madeleine L’Engle
- Living Biographies of the Great Painters by Henry Thomas (source text for biography) Read online here:
- Great Artists, Volume 5 by Jennie Ellis Keysor (Giotto is pages 9-52)
Photo of Artist: By Florentine School – Own workMOSSOT Taken on 30 March 2012, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18906563
