Bondoni and Van Eyck

This paper describes two breakthroughs in art; Giotto de Bondoni's "Adoration of the Magi" and Hubert van Eyck's "St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata of Christ."

856 words () | 10 sources | MLA | 2008 United States

Paper Summary:

The paper looks at Giotto de Bondoni's "Adoration of the Magi" masterpiece and "St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata of Christ," attributed to Hubert van Eyck. The paper describes these two paintings of Giotto's frescoes and van Eyck's oils. The paper notes that although Van Eyck is the more advanced of the two, they are both masterpieces that reward serious study.

From the Paper:

"Giotto de Bondoni was a breakthrough artist in that he turned art toward a much higher degree of realism than it had known before the early fourteenth century. However, by later standards, his frescoes seem remarkably crude. Many of his finest works are among the frescos in the Arena or Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. (Battisti, 78) The chapel was designed by Giotto to provide him with walls on which he created a range of frescoes depicting the life of Christ and various events attendant to that life. The project was apparently undertaken as a compensatory gesture to atone for the usurious career of Reginaldo delgi Scrovegni, a character sufficiently notorious that Dante portrays him in Hell."

Sample of Sources Used:

Alighieri, Dante. The Inferno.
Borchert, Till-Holger. The Age of Van Eyck: The Mediterranean World and Early Netherlandish Painting, 1430-1530. New York, New York: Thames & Hudson, 2002. :
Guratzsch, Herwig. Dutch and Flemish Painting New York, New York, Vilo, 1981.
D'Arcais, Francesca Flores. Giotto. New York, New York: Abbeville Press Publishers, 1995.
Cole, Bruce. Giotto: The Scrovegni Chapel, Padua New York, New York: George Braziller, 1993).