Word: giotto
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Artists who followed in giot-to's footsteps were wowed by his ability to depict human emotions in actual settings. Leonardo da Vinci said Giotto "not only surpassed the masters of his own time, but all those of many preceding centuries." The latest restoration of Giotto's frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua - revealed last week after 10 months of meticulous work - provides fresh proof of da Vinci's words...
...chapel was built by Enrico Scrovegni to atone for the crimes of his father, a notorious usurer, and in 1303 Giotto was commissioned to decorate it. He covered the interior with a fresco narrative of the lives of Jesus and his mother, adding figures of the Virtues and Vices and a Last Judgment. "Giotto was a genius," says Professor Giuseppe Basile of Rome's Central Restoration Institute, who oversaw the restoration. "He planned the location of scenes to fit the chapel's architecture precisely. He developed a form of perspective. His figures had natural movements and expressions. The stories themselves...
...Gospels don't tell us much about the Virgin Mary's life, but in Giotto's time fanciful tales from the Apocryphal Gospels - stories about Jesus and his followers that weren't admitted to the scriptures sanctioned by the Church - filled in the gaps and provided the scripts for mystery plays. Giotto's figures, like medieval actors, seem to have crowded onto a small stage to tell their story, but they behave as real people do, carrying baskets, bathing babies, exchanging significant glances...
Earthquakes are another hazard, inflicting damage on the building in 1975. In 1997 a tremor caused the partial collapse of the Basilica in Assisi, 320 km to the south, reducing some of its Giotto frescoes to a jigsaw of tiny fragments. Under Professor Basile, the crumbled artworks were reassembled and reinstated in record time. This achievement made Basile a natural choice to direct the Scrovegni restorations. Like Giotto, who organized assistants into a production line preparing plaster layers, grinding colors and transferring sketches, Basile assembled his team. As well as Institute graduates, he recruited Gianluigi Colalucci, who was responsible...
Capodilista had already noted the great care Giotto devoted to even the finest details, such as the fair hair covering Christ's torso in the Crucifixion, the camels' whiskers in the Adoration of the Magi, the weaving of the tablecloth in the Marriage at Cana. "These details could not be seen from the ground without binoculars," she says, "but somehow you can guess they are there. Such touches are among the joys of working on Giotto, but they are also a reason to fear making a mistake." Giotto's storyboard of man's redemption is a profound religious drama...