Intro to Art History- High Renaissance--> Giotto vs Sienese Paintings

Giotto, Crucifixion c. 1306, Arena Chapel

• Impresses with still-life flourishes and human interest vignettes- arguing over christ’s cloak story reflects Enrico Scrovegni’s priorities

• Interaction of the figures- modernised

• paints similar world to scrovegni’s —→ consumption,deals

• mary magedalen used as emblem of contrition and redemption (message: time is short, ask for forgiveness)

Duccio, Crucifixion- Maesta altarpiece 1311

• Painting for range of viewership in Vienna- commissioned by church (high altar of Siena)

• required greater stylistic and iconographic orthodoxy - concerned with religious narrative

Giotto, The Angel’s Annunciation of the Birth of the Virgin c.1306

• revolutionary physicality to Giotto’s world- full of material goods and tangible spaces

• spiritual accommodates to material e.g. angel climb through window

• architecture recalls to ancient Rome

• Naïve and childlike- representing something new

• illusionistic

Giotto, Birth of the Virgin 1306

• aims at classicism+ coherent pictorial space and depth (not present in western painting since ancient Rome

• orthogonal lines- sophisticated perspective (Brunelleschian perspective)

• stresses the physicality of space,social interactions, materialism of daily life

• different parts of the story within the same image