Giotto, The Ognissanti Madonna, 1306-10

Giotto, The Ognissanti Madonna, 1306-10, tempera on panel, 128 x 80 1/4" (325 x 204 cm).

Painted for the Church of Ognissanti, Florence

Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris

[music]

Dr. Steven Zucker: Giotto is not a Renaissance painter

but his laying that foundation

--20 perhaps 30 years after Cimabue painted

the large altar piece for Santa Trinita

Giotto--his student--paints the Madonna and child enthroned as well

that we think came from the Church of Ognissanti in Florence

Dr. Beth Harris: And this is a Mary like none we have seen before

she occupies space--she has a monumentality

and presence--and physicality

Dr. Zucker: It's totally different from anything

that we saw at the end of the 1200s

--if you think about Cimabue or even if you think about Duccio in Siena

--there's kind of delicacy--a kind of elegance

that those are figures that are almost paper thin

--and here Giotto's Madonna is solid--she weighs a lot

--there's no knocking her over

Dr. Harris: No--and it's not just the size of her body

it's also that use of modeling that we see

Dr. Zucker: Light and shadow

--the turn of a body that created by the transition

from highlights to shade

Dr. Harris: Exactly--which we can see in her neck

--around her breasts--pulling the drapery

across toward the Christ child

Dr. Zucker: We see that in the Christ child as well

and even in the angels around her

this is so different from that real sense of flatness

or the sense of drawing

this seems much more sculptural

Dr. Harris: With Giotta--we have a really sense of Mary

sitting inside her throne

--her knees are clearly foreshortened

--if you look back at the Duccio

--she turns her body so that he thighs

are parallel to the picture plane

--but the knees in Giotto's Madonna

come forward toward us creating an illusion of space

Dr. Zucker: Ya--it's true and then of course

there's a little bit more of a rational space

for her to exist in

--this is not a painting that uses linear perspective

but it is a painting that functions as a precursor in some ways

--I mean look for example at the specificness

with which the artist places us--the viewer

in relationship to the architecture that he is portraying

--now if you look at it carefully

clearly we are looking down from the step in the foreground

--but we are looking up at the ceiling of the throne

--and there's a left-right axis as well

--we can see a little bit more of the window

on the right side--so we know that we're actually favored

on the left a little bit--and so it makes sense

that we are just below Christ

and we are just to his left

-so Giotto is placing us in a very particular

point in relation to these divine figures

--and it is making room for us

Dr. Harris: As individuals--as viewers

Dr. Zucker: Giving us a kind of dignity in relationship to the divine

--and that is an inherently Renaissance idea

--and what I think is really remarkable

is that the Old Testament prophets that we saw in the Cimabue

are now brought out of the basement

and they flank the Virgin Mary

--and we can actually see their faces--at least two of them

framed in the wings of the throne itself

--so it's as if Giotto was actually suggesting to us

that a painting can be a kind of window

that we can look into--that we can look through

--and that a painting is a kind of frame

in which we can enter with our eyes

Dr. Harris: That's the reason that Giotto's painting

has a kind of emotional power

--even within this very traditional composition

all of that use of gold--all of these things

that are still Medieval

Giotto is--literally--making room

Dr. Zucker: In a sense--making a space for us in this room

because this a world that we can inhabit

this is place that we know where there are solids

--where there is gravity

--where there is in a sense all

the physical forces that our bodies contend with

--and we're able to inhabit this space

in a much more direct way

than in the previous paintings

Dr. Harris: So she's in heaven but she's still here with us

Dr. Zucker: That basic conflict will power

the Renaissance for the next several hundred years

--how to we bring together our physical experience

and our understanding--our emotional attachment

to the divine

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