Overview of 13th Century Italian Art

Pre-Renaissance Italian artists were gripped by Byzantine techniques and styles, which didn't provide much elbow for for artists to go about as they pleased. Wealthy patrons decided on most of what went on in paintings. Art was more of a trade, one had to be an apprentice, and taught by an elder. And even then little actual creative work was done by the apprentices themselves.

"In painting a formula was devised for each holy image; painters carefully avoided any attempt at illusion in space, usually placing their subject against a simple gold background." It seemed as though Byzantine Artists were afraid to do anything but mimic their predecessor's works. "However, the fact that they did so was to have a profound effect on the West because throughout the Middle Ages they kept alive certain principles of classical art which were to inspire the Italian Renaissance." It is now safe to assume that after a while, Byzantine Art was getting a little bit dull, but before the actual Renaissance took place a number of artists "began to see beyond the conventions of Byzantine Style." These artists include Cimabue (c. 1240 - 1302), Duccio Di Buoninsegna (c. 1255 - 1319), Giotto (c. 1276 - 1337) and two father and son sculptors from Pisa -Nicola Pisano (c. 1220 - 1284) and his son Giovanni (c. 1245 - 1314).

A simple timeline: Cimabue, born Cenni di Peppo in Florence, was the teacher of Giotto, who is generally considered to be the father of Renaissance Painting.
Cimabue was not known to drift away from the strict rules governing the byzantine style of the time, but did have a profound effect in the art world. Cimabue's paintings still included much iconography, which could be defined as the standard symbolic meaning of certain pictorial subject matter. Take a look at the "Crucifix" painted in 1275, Cimabue "brought a much greater degree of physical accuracy to the accepted byzantine formula of representing christ upon the cross."

Giorgio Vasari, sixteenth century painter, architect, and art historian wrote that one day as Cimabue was walking about the Tuscany hillside, he came upon a boy who painted on stones and slate, filled with sketches of his fathers farm animals, this boy was Giotto, the father of renaissance painting.

Looking at the "Ognissanti Madonna", painted sometime between 1310 and 1316, one can see the "weight" of Madonna on her throne, all the figures take up space and come to life. Giotto was said to have looked toward nature for direction and inspiration. Giotto brought to the table a kind of natural inclination towards painting -his figures bursting with life being represented as three dimentional figures, the depth, warmth and calrity of them. No longer were figures dubbed icons but real images which expressed emotions. Giotto set a new standard for painting, not only in Tuscany but the world. "Giotto had singlehandedly broken the constricting tradition of painting as a kind of pictorial writing." Giotto also ushered in the new age of the famous artist. High demand for his work also made him very wealthy. In 1334, Giotto was made chief architect in Florence. Modern artists owe as much to Giotto as astronomers do to Galileo. Later, in his Florentine years Giotto dedicated his time to his very own workshop.