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ITALIAN RENAISSANCE
ERA
Famous artists include:
Giotto (1267-1337)
Gentile da Fabriano (1370-1427)
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446)
Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455)
Donatello (1386-1466)
Paolo Uccello (1397-1475)
Fra Angelico (1400-55)
Tommaso Masaccio (1401-1428)
Leon Battista Alberti (1404-72)
Piero della Francesca (1420-92)
Andrea Mantegna (1430-1506)
Donato Bramante (1444-1514)
Alessandro Botticelli (1445-1510)
Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-94)
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
Michelangelo (1475-1564)
Titian (1477-1576)
Raphael (1483-1520)
Jacopo Tintoretto (1518-1594)
Paolo Veronese (1528-1588)
Giambologna (1529-1608)
Caravaggio (1573-1610)
HISTORY
For an account of the evolution
of art in Italy during the 15th and
16th centuries, see:
Proto-Renaissance (1300-1400)
Early Renaissance (1400-90)
High Renaissance
(1490-1530)
Mannerism (1530-1600)
Renaissance in
Florence (Medici)
Renaissance in Rome
(Papal)
Renaissance in Venice
(Colour)
LIST OF PAINTERS/SCULPTORS
For a list of artists from
the Quattrocento and
Cinquecento in Italy, see:
Early Renaissance
Artists
High Renaissance
Artists
Mannerist Artists.
GREAT EUROPEAN PAINTERS
For biographies and paintings
of the greatest artists in Europe
see: Old Masters: Top 100.
COLOURS USED IN
PAINTING
For an idea of the pigments
used by Cimabue in his
colour painting, see:
Renaissance
Colour Palette.
WORLD'S BEST ART
For a list of the finest artworks:
Greatest Paintings Ever
Oils, watercolours, fresco
from Giotto to postmodernism.
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Biography
The earliest mention of Cimabue places
him in Rome in 1272, a significant location as the city was in the forefront
of artistic innovation at the time. Artists like Pietro Cavallini (active
1270-1330) and Jacopo Torriti (fl.1290s) were already taking the first
steps towards greater naturalism in art, one of the key elements of the
coming Italian Renaissance.
Only one surviving work is known to be
by Cimabue: a St John in the apse mosaic in the Duomo of Pisa Cathedral
(1301-2). However, on the basis of this, tradition has attributed to him
many paintings of outstanding quality from the end of the 13th-century.
The most credible of these attributions include, a cycle of fresco
paintings in the Upper Church of S.Francesco, Assisi (c.1277-79),
the S.Trinita Madonna (before 1285, Uffizi, Florence), and a beautiful
Crucifix in S.Croce, Florence (1280s) (damaged in the 1966 flood).
The Assisi Upper Church frescos
feature the Four Evangelists (in the vaults of the crossing), Life of
the Virgin (walls of the apse), Apocalyptic Scenes and Crucifixion (left
transept), Lives of St Peter and St Paul (right transept). In general,
their preservation is poor, but enough remains visible to show that the
Crucifixion is a work of enormous drama and power. And Cimabue masterfully
unifies the picture plane with the architectural space it occupies.
The S.Trinita Madonna, Cimabue's
major surviving altarpiece, is - like the Rucellai Madonna, by Duccio
di Buoninsegna (c.1260-1319) - one of the most majestic of the series
of huge gabled panel-paintings of the Madonna and Child which culminates
in Ognissanti Madonna (1307) by Giotto. It employs convincing perspective
with a tentative central vanishing point, and marks a significant step
in the Florentine depiction of realistic pictorial space.
Cimabue's talent is also clearly visible
in the S.Croce Crucifixion. The flesh is painted in a new softness,
and Christ's body is portrayed using an extremely emotive Gothic-style
"S" curve, after the Tuscan artist Giunta Pisano (active c.1230-55).
If these (plausible) attributions are accurate,
then Cimabue was indeed the foremost figure in fine
art painting of the pre-Giotto era.
Some art historians also credit Cimabue
with the design of the huge round stained glass window of the choir of
Siena Cathedral (c.1287), although this attribution remains contentious.
Other works associated with Cimabue include: Madonna and Child
(1290-5, Louvre, Paris); and Christ Enthroned between the Virgin and
St John the Evangelist (1301-2, Pisa Cathedral).
In any event, by the beginning of the 14th-century,
Cimabue, his pupils and followers, represented an important group of medieval
artists in the historical development of Italian painting, and were
an important precursor of the Early
Renaissance in Florence.
Paintings by Renaissance artists like Cimabue
can be seen in many of the best art museums
throughout the world.
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