Sidney Colvin

“ In his day the knowledge possessed by painters of the human frame and its structure rested only upon general observation and not upon detailed or scientific study; while to facts other than those of humanity their observation had never been closely directed. Of linear perspective they possessed but elementary and empirical ideas, and their endeavours to express aerial perspective and deal with the problems of light and shade were rare and partial. As far as painting could possibly be carried under these conditions, it was carried by Giotto. ”

“ Giotto’s remaining undisputed works at Assisi are the four celebrated allegorical compositions in honour of St Francis in the vaulting of the Lower Church,—the “Marriage of St Francis to Poverty,” the “Allegory of Chastity,” the “Allegory of Obedience” and the “Vision of St Francis in Glory.” These works are scarcely at all retouched, and relatively little dimmed by time; they are of a singular beauty, at once severe and tender, both in colour and design ”

“ At this point in Giotto’s life we come to the greatest by far of his undestroyed and undisputed enterprises, and one which can with some certainty be dated. This is the series of frescoes with which he decorated the entire internal walls of the chapel built at Padua in honour of the Virgin of the Annunciation by a rich citizen of the town, Enrico Scrovegni, perhaps in order to atone for the sins of his father, a notorious usurer whom Dante places in the seventh circle of hell. The building is on the site of an ancient amphitheatre, and is therefore generally called the chapel of the Arena. ”

“ The art of painting, as re-created by Giotto, was carried on throughout Italy by his pupils and successors with little change or development for nearly a hundred years, until a new impulse was given to art by the combined influences of naturalism and classicism in the hands of men like Donatello and Masaccio. Most of the anecdotes related of the master are probably inaccurate in detail, but the general character both as artist and man which tradition has agreed in giving him can never be assailed. ”

“ Had the career and influence of St Francis had no other of their vast and far-reaching effects in the world than that of inspiring these noble works of art, they would still have been entitled to no small gratitude from mankind. ”

“ A not improbable tradition asserts that Giotto was helped by Dante in the choice and disposition of the subjects. The frescoes, though not free from injury and retouching, are upon the whole in good condition, and nowhere else can the highest powers of the Italian mind and hand at the beginning of the 14th century be so well studied as here. At the close of the middle ages we find Giotto laying the foundation upon which all the progress of the Renaissance was afterwards securely based. ”

“ But through the ruins of time we can trace in some of these Santa Croce frescoes all the qualities of Giotto’s work at an even higher and more mature development than in the best examples at Assisi or Padua. The frescoes of the Bardi chapel tell again the story of St Francis, to which so much of his best power had already been devoted; those of the Peruzzi chapel deal with the lives of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist. ”

“ Therefore a minority of critics refuse to accept the modern attribution of this transept series to Giotto himself, and see in it later work by an accomplished pupil softening and refining upon his master’s original creations at Padua. Others, insisting that these unquestionably beautiful works must be by the hand of Giotto and none but Giotto, maintain that in comparison with the Paduan examples they illustrate a gradual progress, which can be traced in other of his extant works, from the relatively ornate and soft to the austerely grand and simple. ”

“ Such scenes as the Funeral of St Francis, the Dance of Herodias’s Daughter, and the Resurrection of St John the Evangelist, which have to some extent escaped the disfigurements of the restorer, are among acknowledged classics of the world’s art. ”

“ From these notices, as well as from Vasari, we gain a distinct picture of the man, as one whose nature was in keeping with his country origin; whose sturdy frame and plain features corresponded to a character rather distinguished for shrewd and genial strength than for sublimer or more ascetic qualities; a master craftsman, to whose strong combining and inventing powers nothing came amiss ”

“ The frescoes of the Arena chapel must have been a labour of years, and of the date of their termination we have no proof. Of many other works said to have been executed by Giotto at Padua, all that remains consists of some scarce recognizable traces in the chapter-house of the great Franciscan church of St Antonio. For twenty years or more we lose all authentic data as to Giotto’s doings and movements. ”