Giotto

Lamentation by Giotto di Bondone (1304-1306)

200 x 185 cm (about 78.75 x 72.8 in)

Late Gothic/Early Renaissance

A common subject in Christian art, a lamentation refers to the scene after the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, after His body is taken down off the Cross. Christ’s followers mourn over the corpse as they prepare it for burial. Giotto was commissioned by the wealthy Scrovegni family of Padua, Italy, to decorate the interior of their new chapel. The Scrovegnis were bankers who charged interest on loans, a sin in the medieval Roman Catholic Church. The Scrovegni Chapel, also referred to as the Arena Chapel, was therefore built to atone for that sin and Giotto was hired to paint frescoes for the interior.[i] Lamentation is one of these scenes.

For his composition, Giotto rejected some of the expected artistic conventions of the time. Traditionally, the most important person would go in the center of the painting. Here, the middle is occupied by the John, one of Jesus Christ’s Twelve Apostles. Instead, Christ and His mother Mary, the two most important figures, are almost lost in a crowd of people to the lower left. This placement throws the composition off balance. Because of their importance, Jesus and Mary have symbolic “weight”, more than any other person or object in the scene. By placing them near the extreme edge, not in the center, the “weight” shifts there. Christ is also the focus of the other figures’ attention. The whole painting is now thrown off balance. Sometimes, artists will destabilize their works deliberately to illustrate the emotional states of the figures within — in this case, the turmoil and confusion felt by His followers. Their lives have just literally been thrown off balance, and they are in deep emotional chaos.

Giotto’s arrangement is innovative and would have been a shock to contemporary viewers. A hill, possibly Cavalry, gradually rises to the right and is topped with a budding tree, possibly representing life from death. Because Jesus and Mary are not centered and are placed in a crowd, Giotto added the light-colored ridgeline of the hill to point them out, so they aren’t completely missed. It visually connects Cavalry to the dead Christ. My eye moves back and forth across the scene, from the hill of execution, through an emotional John, to a stunned Mary, to Christ Himself, and then all around the scene, taking it all in.

Medieval art is generally unemotional, but Giotto’s Lamentation is full of emotion. Interestingly, the drama does not come from the figures’ expressions. In fact, there are very little facial expressions at all. Most of the feeling is in body language with each figure reacting naturally and individually. Two raise their arms in shock. Mary Magdaline gently cradles Christ’s feet in her lap. Most stand in shocked silence. Probably the most dramatic reaction (among the humans) is John’s. He bends over, his mouth is open, and his arms are flung wide to his sides. He looks devastated.

I think the two figures sitting with their backs to the viewer are interesting. They represent something else that is different about Giotto’s art. Medieval art was frontal.[ii] It can look staged and somewhat stiff. In contrast, Giotto’s pair are wrapped completely in their cloaks and seems to symbolize how completely enveloped they are in their emotions. Now look at everyone else. No one in the fresco is seen from the front. I see people from different angles, in profile, and from the back. This scene doesn’t feel posed or staged. The people feel real and react realistically.

In the top half of the painting, angels also witness this event but show more emotion than the humans. I have read essays by scholars that describe them as a type of Greek chorus.[iii] They writhe in agony, wail, cover their faces, and pull their hair. It’s interesting that heavenly beings, who are supposed to be above human frailties, show more emotion than humans. Heaven mourns, too.

A final deviation from medieval convention is the use of shading to create mass in the figures. Medieval art can appear stiff, flat, and abstracted. Giotto’s figures have real proportions and real dimensions. They inhabit the pictorial space and seem to have weight. The painter is creating something Europe hadn’t seen in almost one thousand years — a naturalistic art that feels human and relatable. As one of the early innovators of the era, Giotto demonstrates a transition from the late Medieval period into the early Renaissance. Ideas like his would continue to evolve over the following generations and create an artistic style that would dominate Western art for about six hundred years.

The Scrovegni Chapel is owned and cared for by the City of Padua, Italy.

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[i] Frescoes: Paintings on wet plaster.

[ii] Frontal: Figures viewed or intended to be viewed from the front.

[iii] Greek chorus: a group of extra characters that serve to amplify the mood of the scene.