Cimabue

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Santa Trinità Madonna, painted wood panel by Cimabue, … (credit: Alinari/Art Resource, New York)

(born before 1251 — died 1302) Florentine painter and mosaicist. He is documented as a master painter in Rome in 1272. It is assumed that he was apprenticed to an Italo-Byzantine painter, since he was strongly influenced by the Greek Byzantine style. Though a number of works are attributed to him, the only one dated is the mosaic of St. John the Evangelist (1301 – 02) in Pisa Cathedral. He was the outstanding master of his generation and began the movement toward greater realism that culminated in the Renaissance. His style influenced Giotto and Duccio. Cimabue's character may be reflected in his name, which can best be translated as "bullheaded."

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(b ?c. 1240; fl 1272; d Pisa, before 14 July 1302). Italian painter and mosaicist. His nickname means either 'bull-head' or possibly 'one who crushes the views of others' (It. cimare: 'top, shear, blunt'), an interpretation matching the tradition in commentaries on Dante that he was not merely proud of his work but contemptuous of criticism. Filippo Villani and Vasari assigned him the name Giovanni, but this has no historical foundation. He may be considered the most dramatic of those artists influenced by contemporary Byzantine painting through which antique qualities were introduced into Italian work in the late 13th century. His interest in Classical Roman drapery techniques and in the spatial and dramatic achievements of such contemporary sculptors as Nicola Pisano, however, distinguishes him from other leading members of this movement. As a result of his influence on such younger artists as Duccio and Giotto, the forceful qualities of his work and its openness to a wide range of sources, Cimabue appears to have had a direct personal influence on the subsequent course of Florentine, Tuscan and possibly Roman painting.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

The Italian painter Cimabue (active last quarter of 13th century) worked in an Italo-Byzantine style characterized by a vigor and vivacity that set it apart from the more conventional art of his times and anticipated the more natural style of the 14th century.

Cimabue whose given name was Cenno de' Pepi, was probably born before 1250. The earliest document associated with him dates from June 8, 1272. The only other documented phase of Cimabue's life relates to his apse mosaic, St. John the Evangelist, in the Pisa Cathedral, dated 1301-1302. He died sometime after mid-1302.

Some hint of Cimabue's personality comes from literary sources. Dante mentioned Cimabue in the Divine Comedy but was more concerned with the moral lesson to be taught about the transitory nature of fame than with Cimabue's character: "Once, Cimabue thought to hold the field/In painting; Giotto's all the rage today;/The other's fame lies in the dust concealed" (Purgatory, Canto XI, 94-96, trans. Dorothy L. Sayers).

In an early-14th-century commentary on the Divine Comedy, Cimabue was described as arrogant and haughty; however, Lorenzo Ghiberti's account of the legend, later repeated by Giorgio Vasari, of how Cimabue discovered Giotto as a shepherd drawing on a flat stone and offered to train the boy in the artist's craft would suggest that Cimabue's disposition had a charitable side as well.

The majority of extant examples of Cimabue's art consists of frescoes and panel paintings. The most extensive of these are the frescoes in the transept and apse of the Upper Church of S. Francesco in Assisi (ca. 1290). Vasari declared that Cimabue was responsible for all the decorations in the Upper Church except for the series of frescoes given over to the legend of St. Francis. Modern critics have tended to see Cimabue as the guiding spirit behind the decoration of the transept and apse but not necessarily the author of every scene.

The large Crucifixion scene in the left transept is the masterpiece among Cimabue's works in Assisi. The fresco, which now has the appearance of a photographic negative, the result of the blackening of lead pigments, is powerful and evocative. Cimabue took a Byzantine iconographic form, the dead Christ on the cross, and filled it with human drama. From the gentle rhythms among the faithful on the left to the pulsating hysteria of the angels fluttering about the cross, Cimabue related the story of the Crucifixion in direct, humanly comprehensible terms. The firmly rendered figures possess a plasticity and fullness not commonly found in late-13th-century painting and certainly explain why he was cited as the first painter to break away from the "Greek" manner and develop a more natural style of painting.

The Evangelists' portraits in the vaults of the crossing also reveal Cimabue's skill in creating full and plastic forms. Placed in half of the rather awkward triangular format, balanced in the other half with a cityscape, the Evangelists sit on wooden thrones drawn in distorted perspective. Their heads and hands have a volume quite consistent with the three-dimensional rendering of the drapery.

In the Lower Church of S. Francesco is the fresco Madonna Enthroned with Angels and St. Francis. It is one of Cimabue's most touching works, although it is in poor condition now.

Two painted wood crucifixes demonstrate the evolution of Cimabue's style. In the earlier work, in S. Domenico, Arezzo, which probably dates from before the frescoes in Assisi (that is, before ca. 1290), the artist retained traditional Italo-Byzantine conventions, especially in the linear definition of muscles, treatment of the hair, gold striations in the opaque loincloth, and two bust-length portraits in the terminals. The later work, formerly in Sta Croce, Florence (destroyed 1966), which probably dates from about the same time as the murals in Assisi, showed a new softness of modeling and abandonment of some Byzantine conventions, like gold striations. The torso of Christ was modeled with broad, widely varied tones which tended to suppress the tortoiseshell appearance seen in the Arezzo crucifix. In the Florence crucifix Cimabue was moving further along the path toward greater naturalism.

The large Madonna Enthroned from the Church of Sta Trinita in Florence (1280-1285) is one of the best paintings to study in order to understand Cimabue's art. The artist retained a number of Byzantine motifs but forsook the austere, hieratic remoteness of the typical Byzantine Virgin for a softer, more human warmth. She is more accessible, more loving, more the earthly mother. Cimabue, furthermore, showed a concern for the realistic depiction of space in his arrangement of the angels around the throne and in the perspective of the throne itself. The four busts which appear in openings below the throne are without precedent. They give the panel an architectural stability and importance not found in any other work of the period.

Further Reading

The literature on Cimabue is substantial, with most of the work in Italian and German. Among English language works Eugenio Battisti's monograph Cimabue (1963; trans. 1967) is the most useful. It includes complete transcriptions of all documents, most of the earliest sources, a catalogue raisonné, a good bibliography, and especially fine color and black-and-white reproductions. Alfred Nicholson, Cimabue: A Critical Study (1932), is basic for an understanding and appreciation of Cimabue's role in the evolution of Italian painting. It includes very useful appendices, with summaries of documents and sources and lists of authentic and attributed works.

Cimabue
Maestà, 1280-1285, Uffizi Gallery, Florence
Born	c. 1240
Died	c. 1302 Pisa
Nationality	Italian
Field	Painting
Movement	Italian Renaissance

Cenni di Pepo (Giovanni) Cimabue (c. 1240 — c. 1302) also known as Bencivieni di Pepo or in modern Italian, Benvenuto di Giuseppe, was an Italian painter and creator of mosaics from Florence. He is also well known for his student Giotto, considered the first great artist of the Italian Renaissance. Cimabue is generally regarded as the last great Italian painter working in the Byzantine tradition.^[1] The art of this period comprised scenes and forms that appeared relatively flat and highly stylized. Cimabue was a pioneer in the move towards naturalism, as his figures were depicted with rather more life-like proportions and shading.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Works 3 Legacy 4 See also 5 References 6 Sources 7 External links

Biography

Crucifix, 1287-1288, Panel, 448 x 390 cm
Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence.

Owing to little surviving documentation, not much is known about Cimabue's life. He was born in Florence and died in Pisa. His career was described in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (called, in Italian, Le Vite), widely regarded as the first art history book, though it was completed over 200 years after Cimabue's death. Although it is one of the few early records we have of him, its accuracy is uncertain. According to Hugh Honour and John Fleming: "His name is, in fact, little more than a convenient label for a closely related group of panel and wall paintings".^[2]

Works

Judging this by the commissions that he received, Cimabue appears to have been a highly-regarded artist in his day. While he was at work in Florence, Duccio was the major artist, and perhaps his rival, in nearby Siena. Cimabue was commissioned to paint two very large frescoes for the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. They are on the walls of the transepts: a Crucifixion and a Deposition. Unfortunately these works are now dim shadows of their original appearance. During occupancy of the building by invading French troops, straw caught fire, severely damaging the frescoes. The white paint was partially composed of silver, which oxidised and turned black, leaving the faces and much of the drapery of the figures in negative.

The Madonna of St. Francis.

Another sadly-damaged work is the great Crucifix of Santa Croce at Florence. It was the major work of art lost in the flood in Florence in 1966. Much of the paint from the body and face washed away.

Among Cimabue's few surviving works are the Madonna of Santa Trinita, once in the church of Santa Trinita, and now housed, with Duccio's Rucellai Madonna and Giotto's Ognissanti Madonna, in the Uffizi Gallery.

In the Lower Church of Saint Francis in Assisi is an extremely important fresco, depicting The Madonna and Christ Child enthroned with angels and Saint Francis. It is claimed to be a work of Cimabue's old age.

Two additional, very fine paintings are attributed to Cimabue. The Flagellation of Christ was purchased by New York's Frick Collection in 1950 and was long considered to be of uncertain authorship, possibly Duccio's. But in 2000, the National Gallery in London acquired The Virgin and Child Enthroned with Two Angels with many similarities (size, materials, red borders, incised margins, etc.) to Flagellation. The two pictures are now thought to be parts of a single work, a diptych or triptych altarpiece, and their attribution to Cimabue is fairly secure. The pair are believed to date from 1280. The Virgin and Child was on loan to the Frick for a few months in late 2006, so the two works could be viewed side-by-side. The Flagellation painting is one of only two Cimabues permanently in the United States.

A tiny devotional painting of a "Madonna and Child with SS. Peter and John the Baptist" at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC was painted by Cimabue or one of his students around 1290. It is significant because it shows a cloth of honor that may well be the first patchwork quilt in Western art.

Legacy

History has long regarded Cimabue as the last of an era that was overshadowed by the Italian Renaissance. In Canto XI of his Purgatorio, Dante laments Cimabue's quick loss of public interest in the face of Giotto's revolution in art:^[3]

O vanity of human powers,
how briefly lasts the crowning green of glory,
unless an age of darkness follows!
In painting Cimabue thought he held the field
but now it's Giotto has the cry,
so that the other's fame is dimmed.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Cimabue

• List of painters
• List of Italian painters
• Western painting
• List of famous Italians

References

1. ^ Adams, 9.
2. ^ page 303, A World History of Art, by Hugh Honour and John Fleming, first published in the UK by Papermac in 1982, ISBN 0333 37185 2
3. ^ Purgatio XI, cited in the Cenni di Petro Cimabue article in the Catholic Encyclopedia

Sources

• Adams, Laurie Schneider (2001). Italian Renaissance Art. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. pp. 420. ISBN 0813336902. 
• Vasari, Giorgio; translation by George Bull (1965). Lives of the Artists. Penguin Classics. 
• Vaughn, William (2000). Encyclopedia of Artists. Oxford University Press, Inc. ISBN 0-19-521572-9. 

External links

• Web Gallery of Art

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