Comparing The Art Of Cimabue And Giotto

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The era in which Cimabue and Giotto grew influenced how they saw art and how they identified with their portrayal of images. Cimabue a master of the byzantine era and Giotto, early renaissance, however Giotto di Bondone was a pupil of Cimabue. “Cimabue was the last great painter working in the Byzantine tradition” (Finnan). His pupil Giotto was instrumental in the renaissance art movement, influenced by religion. “Di Bondone chose to paint his subjects, the overwhelming majority were religious figures, in a solid and classicizing way reminiscent of Arnolfo di Cambio” (Artble 2015). Though Giotto had been a pupil of Cimabue, each having produced a large painting of the Madonna and child, Mary and baby Jesus. Though Giotto recreated Cimabue’s Madonna and child there are distinct differences between the two paintings. “Around 1285, Cimabue was commissioned to produce a large Enthroned Madonna and Child for the church of Santa Trinita in Florence” (Adams 11). Giotto’s image was produced for “Ognissanti (All Saints’) Church in Florence with Cimabue’s version of the same subject” (Adams 25). Both paintings signify the symbolic importance Mary and baby Jesus had on Christianity and Roman Catholicism and its …show more content…

However, the prophets and angels are not level with the child but beneath as to be gazing upon him through the open spaces or what we would call a window. “The angels also extend vases of lilies and roses, the former being symbols of the Virgin’s purity and the latter (which we believed to have grown without thorns in the Garden of Eden) of her role in redemption of Eve’s sin” (Adams 27). Two other angels are holding gold crowns which symbolizes that the child is king of all kings. In each image Cimabue and Giotto use the same flat style halos around the figures which resemble the Byzantine

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