Blog on Giotto

Giotto

 Giotto di Bondone was born in 1270 near Florence Italy. He was an artist and architect around the Gothic era. He is well known for his frescos at the Scrovegni Chapel.  He died January 8, 1337.

Another well known piece of his was The Lamentation.

In this piece Giotto uses lots of perspective, balance, emphasis and unity. He uses perspective by making the flying angels smaller to show their distances as well as the cliffs and the tree in the back. He uses balance by distributing the people out around Jesus instead of having all of them in a line. Along with how he distributed the angels and had the farthest cliff more toward the left and the closer one towards the right. There is an emphasis on certain faces that have a bright yellow halo around them. This really makes them stand out against the navy blue and browns in the background, plus gives them a significance. All of these make the piece satisfying to look at, giving it unity. I like the expression he captured on Mary's face while she's holding her son. I find it different how the angels have adult faces on child bodies. I also noticed a similarity in the three faces on the right ( The man with his hands out behind him, the girl in blue and the girl holding his feet).