Discover the remarkable life of Giotto di Bondone...The name Giotto di Bondone may not be as well-known as Leonardo da Vinci, but it was Giotto who made da Vinci and his contemporaries of the Renaissance possible. Giotto, born in the late thirteenth century, was the first painter to escape the artistic chains of the Dark Ages and revive the natural art of Ancient Greece. Instead of creating flat, expressionless figures, as was the custom of the Middle Ages, Giotto painted characters with personalities and emotions. Since almost all art of that time was commissioned by the Church, Giotto spent his life painting magnificent frescos for churches and chapels. He became the most famous painter of his time and opened the artistic doors to the splendid Renaissance to come. Discover a plethora of topics such as Humble Beginnings The Assisi Frescos From Rome to Padua: The Arena Chapel At King Robert's Court Giotto, the Architect Late Life and Death And much more! So if you want a concise and informative book on Giotto di Bondone, simply scroll up and click the "Buy now" button for instant access!

Florence and the Renaissance have become virtually synonymous, bringing to mind names like Dante, Giotto, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and many others whose creativity thrived during a time of unprecedented prosperity, urban expansion, and intellectual innovation. With more than 200 illustrations, Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance reveals the full complexity and enduring beauty of the art of this period, including panel paintings, illuminated manuscripts, and stained glass panels. The book considers not only the work of Giotto and other influential artists, including Bernardo Daddi, Taddeo Gaddi, and Pacino di Bonaguida, but also that of the larger community of illuminators and panel painters who collectively contributed to Florence's artistic legacy. It places particular emphasis on those artists who worked in both panel painting and manuscript illumination, and presents new conservation research and scientific analyses that shed light on artists' techniques and workshop practices of the times. Reunited here for the first time are twenty-six leaves of the most important illuminated manuscript commission of the period: the Laudario of Sant' Agnese. The splendor of this book of hymns exemplifies the spiritual and artistic aspirations of early Renaissance Florence. A major exhibition on this subject will be on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum November 13, 2012, through February 10, 2013, and at the Art Gallery of Ontario March 16, 2013, through June 16, 2013. Contributors to this volume include Roy S. Berns, Eve Borsook, Bryan Keene, Francesca Pasut, Catherine Schmidt Patterson, Alan Phenix, Laura Rivers, Victor M. Schmidt, Alexandra Suda, Yvonne Szafran, Karen Trentelman, and Nancy Turner.

Giotto di Bondone ¿ best known simply as Giotto ¿ is considered by many to be one of the fathers of the Italian Renaissance. This volume presents readers with an insightful illustrated examination of his celebrated altarpiece, the Ognissanti Madonna.

This probing analysis of three works by Giotto and the patrons who commissioned them goes far beyond the clichés of Giotto as the founding figure of Western painting. It traces the interactions between Franciscan friars and powerful bankers, illuminating the complex interplay between mercantile wealth and the iconography of poverty. Political strife and religious faction lacerated fourteenth-century Italy. Giotto’s commissions are best understood against the background of this social turmoil. They reflected the demands of his patrons, the requirements of the Franciscan Order, and the restlessly inventive genius of the painter. Julian Gardner examines this important period of Giotto’s path-breaking career through works originally created for Franciscan churches: Stigmatization of Saint Francis from San Francesco at Pisa, now in the Louvre, the Bardi Chapel cycle of the Life of St. Francis in Santa Croce at Florence, and the frescoes of the crossing vault above the tomb of Saint Francis in the Lower Church of San Francesco at Assisi. These murals were executed during a twenty-year period when internal tensions divided the friars themselves and when the Order was confronted by a radical change of papal policy toward its defining vow of poverty. The Order had amassed great wealth and built ostentatious churches, alienating many Franciscans in the process and incurring the hostility of other Orders. Many elements in Giotto’s frescoes, including references to St. Peter, Florentine politics, and church architecture, were included to satisfy patrons, redefine the figure of Francis, and celebrate the dominant group within the Franciscan brotherhood.

The rebirth of realistic representation in Italy around 1300 led to the materialization of a pictorial language which dominates global visual culture even today. This book offers the first comprehensive study of Italian meta-painting in the age of Giotto and sheds new light on the early modern and modern history of the phenomenon. The analysis of pictorial illusionism and reality effect together with the liturgical, narrative and typological role of images-within-images makes this work a pioneering contribution to visual studies and premodern Italian culture.

Giotto di Bondone is best known for the frescoes he painted in the Arena Chapel, Padua, his best preserved work. In this exquisite, magnificently illustrated volume, Claudio Bellinati's texts help the reader to discover the literal, poetic and artistic significance of every scene.