WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.192 [music] 00:00:04.192 --> 00:00:06.057 Dr. Steven Zucker: Giotto is not a Renaissance painter 00:00:06.057 --> 00:00:08.057 but his laying that foundation 00:00:08.057 --> 00:00:11.003 --20 perhaps 30 years after Cimabue painted 00:00:11.003 --> 00:00:14.237 the large altar piece for Santa Trinita 00:00:14.237 --> 00:00:18.588 Giotto--his student--paints the Madonna and child enthroned as well 00:00:18.588 --> 00:00:21.606 that we think came from the Church of Ognissanti in Florence 00:00:21.606 --> 00:00:25.591 Dr. Beth Harris: And this is a Mary like none we have seen before 00:00:25.591 --> 00:00:30.424 she occupies space--she has a monumentality 00:00:30.424 --> 00:00:32.674 and presence--and physicality 00:00:32.674 --> 00:00:35.021 Dr. Zucker: It's totally different from anything 00:00:35.021 --> 00:00:37.470 that we saw at the end of the 1200s 00:00:37.470 --> 00:00:40.543 --if you think about Cimabue or even if you think about Duccio in Siena 00:00:40.543 --> 00:00:43.126 --there's kind of delicacy--a kind of elegance 00:00:43.126 --> 00:00:45.985 that those are figures that are almost paper thin 00:00:45.985 --> 00:00:50.483 --and here Giotto's Madonna is solid--she weighs a lot 00:00:50.483 --> 00:00:52.669 --there's no knocking her over 00:00:52.669 --> 00:00:56.023 Dr. Harris: No--and it's not just the size of her body 00:00:56.023 --> 00:00:58.634 it's also that use of modeling that we see 00:00:58.634 --> 00:01:00.226 Dr. Zucker: Light and shadow 00:01:00.226 --> 00:01:02.976 --the turn of a body that created by the transition 00:01:02.976 --> 00:01:05.275 from highlights to shade 00:01:05.275 --> 00:01:08.988 Dr. Harris: Exactly--which we can see in her neck 00:01:08.988 --> 00:01:11.571 --around her breasts--pulling the drapery 00:01:11.571 --> 00:01:13.172 across toward the Christ child 00:01:13.172 --> 00:01:14.869 Dr. Zucker: We see that in the Christ child as well 00:01:14.869 --> 00:01:16.470 and even in the angels around her 00:01:16.470 --> 00:01:18.788 this is so different from that real sense of flatness 00:01:18.788 --> 00:01:20.499 or the sense of drawing 00:01:20.499 --> 00:01:21.933 this seems much more sculptural 00:01:21.933 --> 00:01:23.968 Dr. Harris: With Giotta--we have a really sense of Mary 00:01:23.968 --> 00:01:26.085 sitting inside her throne 00:01:26.085 --> 00:01:28.669 --her knees are clearly foreshortened 00:01:28.669 --> 00:01:30.497 --if you look back at the Duccio 00:01:30.497 --> 00:01:32.467 --she turns her body so that he thighs 00:01:32.467 --> 00:01:34.766 are parallel to the picture plane 00:01:34.766 --> 00:01:37.249 --but the knees in Giotto's Madonna 00:01:37.249 --> 00:01:40.982 come forward toward us creating an illusion of space 00:01:40.982 --> 00:01:42.828 Dr. Zucker: Ya--it's true and then of course 00:01:42.828 --> 00:01:45.215 there's a little bit more of a rational space 00:01:45.215 --> 00:01:46.967 for her to exist in 00:01:46.967 --> 00:01:48.851 --this is not a painting that uses linear perspective 00:01:48.851 --> 00:01:51.754 but it is a painting that functions as a precursor in some ways 00:01:51.754 --> 00:01:54.285 --I mean look for example at the specificness 00:01:54.285 --> 00:01:57.712 with which the artist places us--the viewer 00:01:57.712 --> 00:02:00.423 in relationship to the architecture that he is portraying 00:02:00.423 --> 00:02:02.518 --now if you look at it carefully 00:02:02.518 --> 00:02:04.901 clearly we are looking down from the step in the foreground 00:02:04.901 --> 00:02:07.142 --but we are looking up at the ceiling of the throne 00:02:07.142 --> 00:02:10.975 --and there's a left-right axis as well 00:02:10.975 --> 00:02:13.663 --we can see a little bit more of the window 00:02:13.663 --> 00:02:16.678 on the right side--so we know that we're actually favored 00:02:16.678 --> 00:02:19.249 on the left a little bit--and so it makes sense 00:02:19.249 --> 00:02:20.949 that we are just below Christ 00:02:20.949 --> 00:02:22.577 and we are just to his left 00:02:22.577 --> 00:02:24.629 -so Giotto is placing us in a very particular 00:02:24.629 --> 00:02:26.974 point in relation to these divine figures 00:02:26.974 --> 00:02:29.698 --and it is making room for us 00:02:29.698 --> 00:02:31.934 Dr. Harris: As individuals--as viewers 00:02:31.934 --> 00:02:34.392 Dr. Zucker: Giving us a kind of dignity in relationship to the divine 00:02:34.392 --> 00:02:37.700 --and that is an inherently Renaissance idea 00:02:37.700 --> 00:02:40.215 --and what I think is really remarkable 00:02:40.215 --> 00:02:43.664 is that the Old Testament prophets that we saw in the Cimabue 00:02:43.664 --> 00:02:45.850 are now brought out of the basement 00:02:45.850 --> 00:02:47.960 and they flank the Virgin Mary 00:02:47.960 --> 00:02:50.344 --and we can actually see their faces--at least two of them 00:02:50.344 --> 00:02:53.329 framed in the wings of the throne itself 00:02:53.329 --> 00:02:56.412 --so it's as if Giotto was actually suggesting to us 00:02:56.412 --> 00:02:58.522 that a painting can be a kind of window 00:02:58.522 --> 00:03:00.801 that we can look into--that we can look through 00:03:00.801 --> 00:03:03.259 --and that a painting is a kind of frame 00:03:03.259 --> 00:03:05.737 in which we can enter with our eyes 00:03:05.737 --> 00:03:08.122 Dr. Harris: That's the reason that Giotto's painting 00:03:08.122 --> 00:03:10.393 has a kind of emotional power 00:03:10.393 --> 00:03:13.343 --even within this very traditional composition 00:03:13.343 --> 00:03:16.076 all of that use of gold--all of these things 00:03:16.076 --> 00:03:17.818 that are still Medieval 00:03:17.818 --> 00:03:20.221 Giotto is--literally--making room 00:03:20.221 --> 00:03:22.811 Dr. Zucker: In a sense--making a space for us in this room 00:03:22.811 --> 00:03:25.044 because this a world that we can inhabit 00:03:25.044 --> 00:03:27.286 this is place that we know where there are solids 00:03:27.286 --> 00:03:28.944 --where there is gravity 00:03:28.944 --> 00:03:30.643 --where there is in a sense all 00:03:30.643 --> 00:03:32.460 the physical forces that our bodies contend with 00:03:32.460 --> 00:03:34.740 --and we're able to inhabit this space 00:03:34.740 --> 00:03:36.502 in a much more direct way 00:03:36.502 --> 00:03:38.388 than in the previous paintings 00:03:38.388 --> 00:03:40.537 Dr. Harris: So she's in heaven but she's still here with us 00:03:40.537 --> 00:03:44.011 Dr. Zucker: That basic conflict will power 00:03:44.011 --> 00:03:46.565 the Renaissance for the next several hundred years 00:03:46.565 --> 00:03:49.478 --how to we bring together our physical experience 00:03:49.478 --> 00:03:52.334 and our understanding--our emotional attachment 00:03:52.334 --> 00:03:54.244 to the divine 00:03:54.244 --> 00:04:09.652 [music]