Details

ONLINE ART HISTORY COURSE
“Giotto: The Most Excellent Painter” Part II

Course Description:

Few artists in history have had an impact on their fields the way Giotto did in the 14^th century.

Giorgio Vasari claimed “For after the many years during which the methods…of good painting had been buried…it was Giotto alone who…rescued and restored the art…” After nearly a millennium in which Byzantine-style pictorial forms dominated western art, Giotto, like his teacher Cimabue before him, turned to Nature as his guide. Giotto introduced convincing 3-dimesional settings, movement, drama, emotion, psychology and sculptural modeling to a world of painting that was by dominated by flat, abstract icons. Simply put, Giotto revolutionized painting. His innovations became the foundation of Western painting for centuries to come. The influence of Giotto can be seen in the works of artists such as Donatello, Masaccio, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Caravaggio, all the way up to Picasso, Rothko and Frank Stella. Giotto was, in the words of a 14^th-century contemporary, the merchant Giovanni Villani, “the most sovereign master of painting in his time.”

Course Objectives:

• To learn to appreciate the rich and influential aspects of Italian Renaissance art and architecture.
• To bring a historical personality to life through a careful and attentive analysis of his artistic career.
• To develop the fundamental skills of art historical analysis that include formal analysis and iconographic interpretation.
• To develop an ability to interact in a personal and intimate manner with works of art and their surroundings

Virtual Classroom: Full access to an online educational platform with videos of recordings, syllabus, and readings.

Credits: Certificate of Completion

Location: LIVE INTERACTIVE ON-LINE ART HISTORY LECTURES

Optional Readings:
Information will be provided 2 weeks before the start of the course.

Complete syllabus will be provided upon registration.

• ALL LECTURES WILL BE RECORDED AND AVAILABLE FOR VIEWING AT YOUR CONVENIENCE IN OUR VIDEO LIBRARY FOR TWO WEEKS AFTER THE COURSE HAS ENDED.

Schedule

Part 2

• WEEK 1:

Monday, January 27: Cimabue, Duccio, and Giotto – Altarpieces for the Virgin Mary and St. Peter (1)

Giotto’s most celebrated altarpiece is the “Ognissanti Madonna” which once sat on the high altar of the Florentine church of the Ognissanti. Working against the Byzantine conventions of the day, Giotto was able to create an image of Mary enthroned that is both naturalistic and majestic. This lecture will examine Giotto painting and compare it to two other contemporary altarpieces by Cimabue and Duccio which sit in the same room of the Uffizi Galleries.

Wednesday, January 29: Cimabue, Duccio, and Giotto – Altarpieces for the Virgin Mary and St. Peter (2)

Around 1320, Giotto was called to Rome by Cardinal Giacomo Gaetani Stefaneschi to paint an altarpiece for the old Basilica of St. Peter. The painting, known as “The Stefaneschi Altarpiece” was located either on the high altar or the canon’s altar of the basilica. Presenting a complex iconography on both sides of the painting celebrating Saints Peter and Paul – patron saints of Rome – and Jesus Christ, Giotto created one the richest and most celebrated altarpieces of the Middle Ages.

• WEEK 2:

Monday, February 3: The Bardi Chapel

Between 1317 and 1337, Giotto painted the walls of the two principal family chapels in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence. The Bardi Chapel contains six scenes from the “Life of St. Francis,” with a seventh scene – the most important of St. Francis’ life: “St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata”- painted above the entrance of the chapel. Giotto’s paintings reflect the hand of a mature master who continued to innovate and produce paintings that can move audiences even centuries later.

Wednesday, February 5: The Peruzzi Chapel

The fresco cycle in the Peruzzi Chapel was either produced simultaneously with or shortly after the completion of the Bardi Chapel. Here Giotto painted scenes from the lives of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, in honor of the chapel’s patron Giovanni Peruzzi. Executed in the “a secco” technique of mural painting, the state of conversation of the six paintings is not optimal, but still reveal the visionary work of Giotto in the last years of his life.

• WEEK 3: 

Monday, February 10: Late Works

In the last decade of his life, while continuing his work in the Bardi and Peruzzi Chapels in Santa Croce, Giotto also executed the altarpiece of the Baroncelli Chapel in the same church. In 1329, he was called to Naples by King Robert of Anjou. Then in 1334, he was named capomaestro of the “Campanile” (Florence Cathedral bell tower), where he worked until his death in 1337. This lecture will explore Giotto last years and the extant works that he produced in this period.

Wednesday, February 12: Giotto’s Legacy

Giotto’s immediate followers – Taddeo and Agnolo Gaddi, Bernardo Daddi, Giusto de’ Menabuoi, Guariento, Altichiero, Jacopo Avanzi – were to carry on his legacy for the rest of the 14^th century, followed by Renaissance painters such as Masaccio and Fra Angelico into the 15^th century and beyond.  In fact, the artistic inheritance that Giotto left behind is still very much manifest in western art today.