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An 8 page research paper. Giotto's fresco cycle in the Arena Chapel at Padua was commissioned by Enrico Scrovegni early in the fourteenth century. The building was meant to be a small private chapel for use of the Scrovegni family, according to an early document (Stubblebine 107). The meaning of the chapel's frescoes have long generated considerable scholarly debate. The frescoes are exquisitely beautiful, but the contemporary viewer is compelled to wonder what they mean and, in particular, to ask what did they mean to the medieval audience for whom they were painted? In answering this question, this discussion of Giotto's frescoes in the Arena Chapel focuses not only on describing this work of art, but also it relates the meaning of the scenes depicted to the medieval culture to which they refer. Bibliography lists 15 sources.
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8 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khgiotto.rtf
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be a small private chapel for use of the Scrovegni family, according to an early document (Stubblebine 107). The meaning of the chapels frescoes have long generated considerable scholarly debate.
The frescoes are exquisitely beautiful, but the contemporary viewer is compelled to wonder what they mean and, in particular, to ask what did they mean to the medieval audience for
whom they were painted? In answering this question, the following discussion of Giottos frescoes in the Arena Chapel focuses not only on describing this work of art, but also it
relates the meaning of the scenes depicted to the medieval culture to which they refer. Giotto It was with the work of Giotto (1276-1337) that painting in Italy took on
the status an independent art (Burns 405). Giotto broke away from the rigid, formulaic appearance of medieval painting, and imbued his art with "subtle emotional intensity," which captured the essence
of what it meant to be a "living, breathing, feeling human being" (Marlow, Grabsky and Rance 35). Due to this fact, his genius was widely recognized and he is regarded
as the founder of naturalism in Western art (Palmer 49). Until Giotto, there was no element of realism in art, only "Madonnas with flat, staring eyes holding outsize infant Christs"
(McGeary 152). Giotto replaced golden backdrops with hills, meadows and houses, which were familiar to his fourteenth century viewers and within these landscapes, he placed human figures showing human emotion
(McGeary 152). But while Giottos style is naturalistic and his human figures are expressive, structurally, he altered spatial proportions to be psychologically correct rather than reflect realism (Fleming 153). In
this manner, Giottos work, like many other painters of this period, was still somewhat stylized and resembled Byzantine art (Barsook 10). For example, human figures, in keeping with their greater
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