Giotto And Virgin And Child Enthronet Analysis

Giotto, a younger member of the artist guild, was a student of Cimabue. Both Giotto and Cimabue painted Virgin and Child Enthroned altarpieces created from wood panels of tempera and gold. Viewing their renditions of the Virgin and Child Enthroned, Cimabue’s and Giotto’s distinct styles are apparent. By comparing and contrasting Cimabue’s and Giotto’s style of work, the viewer can see the shift from Byzantine to classical style of art.
Cimabue’s and Giotto’s Virgin and Child Enthroned altarpieces were large in scale with Cimabue’s standing at 12’ tall and Giotto’s at 10’8” tall. They both applied gold coloration in their backgrounds representing a sense of divine radiance. The subject matter painted was a common Byzantine iconographical theme of Mary with the infant Jesus on her lap surrounded by saints, prophets and …show more content…
He created spatial ambiguity, more realistic anatomy of his figures, and gave the background a greater sense of depth compared to Cimabue’s Virgin and Child Enthroned. Giotto’s invited the viewer into the painting with his use of perspective. He captured the viewer’s attention in a particular point of his painting with his realistic portrayal of the subject. He effectively modeled light and shade to give his subjects a three-dimensional form that seemed so realistic; the subjects appeared to be like a sculpture in the round. Giotto’s Virgin and Child Enthroned shifted the style back to classical by his ability to paint figures to appear more like sculptures and in a positioned view of the human form. Unlike the Byzantine figures, Giotto’s figures had physicality due to him adding modeling of light and dark shadowing and offering gestures that were more natural. His figures clothed in drapery were more form fitting and flowed in the direction that they were being pulled. The way that Giotto positioned the figures told a story and conveyed