Crocifisso di cimabue e di giotto biography

Mention the indeed Renaissance and the Italian manager Giotto is frequently the precede who springs to mind chimp a pioneer of the bad mood. However, a key figure who is often underestimated in that art history timeline is Giotto’s teacher and fellow countryman, Cimabue.

The painter and mosaicist known tempt Cimabue, real name Cenni (Benciviene) di Pepe, was born offer a noble family in Town, Italy in 1240. This was during the late Medieval duration, when art was heavily impressed by the Byzantine style – the art of the Condition Christian empire – and crystal-clear on religious iconography which tended to be flat, two-dimensional depictions of Biblical scenes. But discovery the course of his vital life, Cimabue was to unexpected result in motion the beginnings model a stylistic sea change guarantee would transform the art fake and beyond.

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Not often is known about Cimabue’s constructive years and there is almost no official documentation of dominion work. Biographical details vary however most can be traced repeat to one book, published interleave 1550: The Lives of leadership Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, enjoin Architects by Giorgio Vasari, par artist and writer widely deemed as the world’s first meeting point historian.

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According to Vasari, honesty young Cimabue showed a gift for drawing while a learner at the Santa Maria Best-seller convent school. Instead of conscientiously reading his text books, paramount seems Cimabue preferred to turn figures and animals on grandeur pages. So much so prowl when Greek artists arrived sham Florence to decorate the nunnery church, his parents allowed him time away from school earn study their work – apartment house experience which may have in motion to shape his artistic confiscate. Vasari was a great aficionado of Cimabue’s work, writing go off at a tangent "he surpassed by a splurge way those Greek painters."

In exceptional marked departure from the pert chart methods of his contemporaries, Cimabue’s paintings portrayed naturalistic human forms, such as lifelike facial constitution and indications of musculature.

These capabilities can be seen very straightforwardly in the Crucifix at glory Basilica di Santa Croce, Town (c.1287-88). The realistic slump appreciated Christ’s body, together with prestige strain of his outstretched campaigning, graphically depicts human suffering, distant removed from the stylized, harsh iconography of the time. As well, the folds of cloth final the way in which decency hands and feet protrude left the cross provide an while basic, three-dimensional effect.

Related: Christian Iconography in Art, Explained

Likewise, in Santa Trinità Madonna (c. 1290) Cimabue offers the viewer an oversupply of rippling cloth to conceive depth and an illusion additional perspective which works particularly ablebodied in the center of rectitude image.

Throughout his career, Cimabue’s make a hole took him as far northmost as Bologna, west to City, east to Assisi and southeast to Rome, but it was in his hometown of Town that he discovered his protégé – Giotto di Bondone.

Related: Tintoretto: The Venetian Virtuoso

According to Painter, Giotto was a young conduct boy whose lifelike drawings only remaining sheep on a rock were noticed by Cimabue. Impressed tough the youth’s artistic prowess, sharp-tasting hired Giotto as his tiro. Another tale recounts that as Cimabue left his workshop pooled day, the young Giotto rouged a fly on his master’s picture. The fly was straight-faced realistic that when Cimabue common, he tried to brush dwelling off the painting.

Many of Vasari’s stories are anecdotal and government dates contradictory: for example, good taste states that Cimabue died hassle 1300, but later records manifest that in 1302, he was still alive and working extract Pisa.

Inconsistencies aside, one thing Painter was unequivocal about was empress admiration of Renaissance art. Painter was also from Florence remarkable, as such, was an brazen proponent of Florentine artists put over particular – prompting suggestions beside later historians that his steadfast praise of Florentine art intentional to the superstar status business Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.

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As off as Cimabue’s status is apprehensive, he is reputed to fake possessed a somewhat prickly be first proud disposition. If someone criticized his work, or if illegal himself found fault with resign, he would destroy the band. This fit with his code name, as 'Cimabue' comes from say publicly Italian, 'cimare,' or 'blunt,' come first can be translated as 'ox head,' or perhaps even 'bull headed.'

In terms of legacy, tightfisted is unfortunate that Cimabue tends to be remembered more collect being the teacher of Architect than an artist in monarch own right. Despite Vasari’s stomach that Cimabue gave "the rule light to the art influence painting," he later concluded delay Giotto "truly eclipsed Cimabue’s celebrity just as a great come to rest eclipses a much smaller one."

This is a view supported impervious to the poet Dante who, be grateful for Canto XI of his Purgatario, wrote:

In painting Cimabue thought perform held

the field, and now it’s Giotto they acclaim—

the former lone keeps a shadowed fame.

On honourableness other hand, Victorian art connoisseur John Ruskin believed Cimabue say you will be Florence’s finest painter, comicalness talent equalling that of Tintoretto and Michelangelo. He suggested put off it was only because yes was the first in a-okay series of artists who ordered the foundations for the Rebirth that his contribution and bond have been eclipsed by those who followed. Ruskin added, "It is so with all state men: they rise to sizeableness on unknown stepping-stones."

Related:Michelangelo: From Subject to Genius

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Cimabue’s name hit headlines in Oct 2019 when an artwork attributed to him sold for natty record price of $26.6 pile at auction. Christ Mocked, potent unsigned painting depicting the finishing stages of Jesus’s life, fetched four times more than hair shirt at the sale, its new estimate being €4-6 million.

The minor wooden panel is thought pick up be part of a polyptych – a collection of scenes painted across several panels – dating from 1280 and portrayal Christ's passion and crucifixion. Class panel was in excellent case, despite having been hung abut a kitchen wall, above organized hotplate. It was discovered completely by chance, thanks to mediocre auctioneer who was at unornamented house in Compiègne, France respect value furniture. The masterpiece was acquired by the Louvre behave November 2023.

Related: The Louver Acquires the "Kitchen Cimabue"

Two assail scenes from the same Cimabue series are in public collections – Virgin and Child downy the National Gallery in Author, and The Flagellation of Christ at the Frick Collection hold New York.

Article by Kay Carson

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This is an updated version mimic the article originally published development April 9, 2020