Lecture 7: Giotto and the Arena Chapel—Part II
¿ gures who sit with their backs to us. Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus
stand at the far right in front of the high point of a rock topped by a small
dead tree.The rock begins its sloping descent, encountering the grieving John, who
leans forward and throws his arms backward, wing-like. Below him, one of
the holy women bends over Jesus, and below her, seated in dejection at his
feet, is Mary Magdalene. The height of emotion is reached at the end of this
diagonal of grief, where the Virgin cradles her son in her lap, supported by her
knee, their two haloed heads placed in intense juxtaposition, a concentration
of tenderness and sorrow. In the sky, the 10 angels of the cruci¿ xion return
to provide their own lament in counterpoint to the long lines, dramatic
pauses, and resounding chords of the human mourners. Perhaps the pictorial
representation of great loss and grief in this fresco has never been surpassed.Next, we look at the huge fresco on the inside wall of the entrance façade
of the chapel, which is not part of the life of Mary or Christ. The Last
Judgment is part of the interior of the Arena Chapel. As visitors originally
saw the Annunciation ¿ rst upon entering the chapel, so they saw The Last
Judgment when leaving. An announcement of the Second Coming and
the ¿ nal judgment of humanity, it is the same scene carved in stone over
the doorways of medieval churches but vastly enlarged. It is not without
precedent—such huge Last Judgments exist elsewhere. The Last Judgment
reminds us that Giotto clearly belongs to the Middle Ages. But when looking
at the Lamentation and many of Giotto’s other poignant images of humanity,
we must remember that he was also the most remarkable precursor and one
of the greatest sources of the Italian Renaissance of the 15th century.One other matter of signi¿ cance must be mentioned here. Although we
know the names of occasional earlier artists in the history of art, they remain
essentially anonymous. With Giotto, a new phenomenon arises—from now
on, the history of art is also the history of great artists. Ŷ