Giotto Renaissance

Art historians don 't really agree if the art in this period is the tail end of medieval art or the front end of renaissance art. They do however agree that this time period marks a significant change in artistic style, moving away from the spiritual and into the realistic and that Giotto was the most important figure in it.

Giotto 's most important work is the fresco cycle of Arena Chapel in Padua. Giotto was celebrated as the first renaissance painter due to his definitive break from the maniera greca(Byzantine mode) of late medieval painting and his move towards the naturalism of the ancients. Giotto rejected ostentatious styles that were the norm in favor of a more subtle and realistic approach. Emphasizing on the real rather than the spiritual in an age dominated by religious influence, in my opinion, was a gamble. One that certainly paid off and resonated out to other artists such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael. They absorbed Giotto 's ideals and created their very own masterworks. In a way, I feel as if we all won something from Giotto 's gamble. Art that we can relate to and a Renaissance style of teaching that is still used to this day. One of Giotto 's inspiration was the artist Pietro Cavallini.

The Florentines wanted to emulate the Athenians to better reflect the more natural and human side of art and move away from the more spiritually driven aspect of it. Humanism became a central component of Italian art placing the study and progress of human nature at the center of interests. Eventually Humanism allowed your everyday people to become as great as Saints in artistic portrayals. For example halo 's that went around the heads of Saints eventually disappeared during the Renaissance and they began to look more like ordinary people. Humanism affected the way artists were perceived. While society viewed artists as mere workers or servants of rulers, Renaissance artists were trained intellectuals, and their art reflected this newfound