Their works have value, if at all, as highly elaborate, very intelligible symbols, capable, indeed, of communicating something, but losing all higher value the moment the message is delivered. But none of these masters had the power to stimulate the tactile imagination, and, consequently, they never painted a figure which has artistic existence. For great though he was as a poet, enthralling as a story teller, splendid and majestic as a composer, he was in these qualities superior in degree only, to many of the masters who painted in various parts of Europe during the thousand years that intervened between the decline of antique, and the birth, in his own person, of modem painting. This is his everlasting claim to greatness, and it is this which will make him a source of highest aesthetic delight for a period at least as long as decipherable traces of his handiwork remain on mouldering panel or crumbling wall. 'Well, it was of the power to stimulate the tactile consciousness of the essential, as I have ventured to call it, in the art of painting that Giotto was supreme master. Although he affords no exception to the rule that the great Florentines exploited all the arts in the endeavor to express themselves, he, Giotto, renowned as an architect and sculptor, reputed as wit and versifier, differed from most of his Tuscan successors in having a peculiar aptitude for the essential in painting as an art.

'The first of the great personalities in Florentine painting was Giotto. Giotto di Bondone | The National Gallery, London The other six scenes are the 'Nativity with Epiphany' (Metropolitan Museum, New York) the 'Presentation in the Temple' (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston) the 'Last Supper' and the 'Crucifixion' (both Alte Pinakothek, Munich) the 'Entombment' (Berenson Collection, Settignano) and the 'Descent into Limbo' (Alte Pinakothek, Munich). In the foreground, men from different nations marvel at hearing the apostles' words in their own language.Īll seven pieces of the altarpiece still exist. The Holy Spirit is shown descending on them in the form of a dove and tongues of fire, granting them the power to speak in many languages (Acts 2: 3). 'Pentecost' represents the twelve apostles gathered together after Christ's Ascension into Heaven. The altarpiece may have been made for a Franciscan church at Rimini or Sansepolcro. Concentration and gravity are the hallmarks of Giotto's style, and his figures, notable for their expressive character and three-dimensional weightiness, inhabit convincing architectural spaces. His few undisputed panel paintings include the 'Ognissanti Madonna' (Florence, Uffizi). Giotto's main surviving fresco cycles are those in the Arena Chapel, Padua, which probably date from just before 1305, and those in the Bardi and Peruzzi chapels in Santa Croce, Florence, probably before 1328. The part he played in initiating a new phase in Italian painting was recognised by Dante his contemporary, and later underlined by Vasari. He also worked in Avignon, Padua and Naples (1328-32). He was mainly active in Florence, although he may have been trained in Rome. It is probable that this scene was the last of the seven scenes from the life of Christ that formed part of a long rectangular altarpiece, painted oGiotto was the chief liberator of Italian painting from the Byzantine style of the early Middle Ages. It is worth noting that the setting of the Pentecost is very nearly the only one at Padua that directly reflects contemporary Gothic architecture. Their faces show astonishment and transfiguration. The disciples have gathered, and rays from the Holy Ghost descend upon them. Pentecost is being celebrated in a structure set obliquely in space, and whose Gothic arcades permit a view of the interior.

In the lower tier on the left wall are the Road to Calvary, the Crucifixion, the Lamentation, the Resurrection (represented by the Noli me tangere scene instead of the three Marys at the tomb), the Ascension, and the Pentecost.

Giotto descent into limbo