Lecture 5: Gothic Art in Germany and Italy
Giovanni also worked in Pisa, creating a great pulpit for the cathedral.
Consider The Nativity (c. 1302–1311). The scene still contains multiple
simultaneous narratives, but there are many differences between Giovanni’s
design and Nicola’s. Although the Virgin is hieratically large, her dominance
is not as striking, and our eyes are drawn to her because of the sloping,
eye-shaped oval that contains her body. The lower part of that shape is
marked by the curve of her bedclothes; then the eye is drawn upward at the
left by the curve of her back and head and by the beginning of a grotto-like
arc that envelopes Mary, the ox and ass, and her child, to whom she pays
tender attention. The overall design is dynamic, with a swaying, swinging
line; bowing, stooping, and bending ¿ gures; and a scheme of ¿ gures radiating
outward from a point in the lower center of the panel.Both Pisanos also worked in Siena, in the striking black-and-white marble
cathedral shown as our next example. This cathedral (mid-12th to late 14th c.,
Siena) has been much altered inside. Long removed from its place of honor
as the high altarpiece is one of the greatest medieval Italian painted altars, the
Maestà. The Maestà (“Majesty”) (c. 1308–1311, front side, with enthroned
Madonna) is by Duccio di Buoninsegna. We will return to this masterpiece
later in our lectures.We will look at three great paintings of a single subject, the Madonna and
Child enthroned with angels, by different artists during a brief period of 25
to 30 years. The artists are Cimabue, Duccio, and Giotto. The monumental
paintings are today all in a single museum, the Uf¿ zi in Florence.First, we will look at Cimabue’s Madonna Enthroned (Santa Trinitá)
(c. 1280–1290). Cimabue’s monumental Madonna is the stylistic heir to
the ongoing Byzantine tradition—the style of the Eastern Catholic Church,
centered in Constantinople. In the poses, symmetry, and decorative details,
it speaks the language of what contemporary Florentines called the “Greek
manner.” No panel painting in the East had dared such a huge size and rarely
had they achieved such formal simplicity and directness, resulting in a more
personal connection with the viewer.