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Cimabue, or Cenni di Pepo (c.1240 — c.1302) was an Italian painter and creator of mosaics from Florence. Cimabue is generally regarded as the last great 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.
He is also well known for his student Giotto, considered the first great artist of the Italian Renaissance.
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[edit] Name
Cimabue's actual name was Bencivieni di Pepo, commonly shortened to Cenni di Pepo.[2] His name is Benvenuto di Guiseppe in modern Italian.[3]
Cimabue is a nickname meaning "Ox-head", which could be a reference to a strong-willed character. Vasari described Cimabue as "extraordinarily proud and arrogant" (put ref in) and Dante placed Cimabue in Purgatory with other artists overwhelmed by ambition.[3]
[edit] Biography
Owing to little surviving documentation, not much is known about Cimabue's life. He was probably born in Florence. The first record of his existence is a document he signed in Rome in 1272 as a witness to a legal contract. The last is from 1302, when he received payment for his work on a mosaic at the Pisa Cathedral. It is supposed that he died that year since he never finished the work.[4]
His career is described in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (also known as Lives of the Artists), 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.
[edit] Works
[edit] Crucifix of San Domenico in Arezzo
Although Cimabue was probably trained in Byzantine art, his circa 1270 Crucifix of San Domenico in Arezzo shows he was moving away from Byzantine traditions early in his career.
In this work we orientò Cimabue to the recent performances of the crucifixion with the Christus patiens painted from 1250 to the Executive Pisano, but aggiornò iconography arcuando even further the body of Christ, which now debordava occupying the whole strip to the left of the cross. Still patterns Junta link the two figures in boards on the sides of the arm of the cross (John and St. Mary depicted by bust of the late position) and style dry, almost calligraphic anatomical body of Christ.
The similarity with the model giuntesco is explained with an explicit request of Dominicans Arezzo being crucified by Giunta kept in the main church of the Basilica of San Domenico in Bologna.
Another new model was compared to the use of stripes in gold drapery covering the body of Christ or the clothes of two painful, a reason used for the first time, apparently by Coppo di Marcovaldo.
[edit] crucifix for the church of Santa Croce in Florence
Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence (before the flood of the River Arno in 1966).
[edit] Madonna con il Bambino o Maestà del Louvre
[edit] last 20 years on the 13th c (?)
[edit] The frescoes in Assisi
[edit] The Majesty of Santa Trinita
[edit] The last few years in Pisa
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.
Another sadly-damaged work is the great Crucifix of Santa Croce at Florence. It was the major work of art lost in the Flood of the River Arno in Florence in 1966. Much of the paint from the body and face washed away.
Among Cimabue's few surving 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.
[edit] Legacy
History has long regarded Cimabue as the last of an era that was overshadowed by the Italian Renaissance. In the Divine Comedy, Dante laments Cimabue's quick loss of public interest in the face of Giotto's revolution in art:[5]
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.
[edit] See also
[edit] Citations
- ^ Adams, Italian Renaissance Art, 9
- ^ Fucilla, Our Italian Surnames, 35.
- ^ a b Battisti, Cimabue, 5
- ^ Chiellini, Cimabue, 3-5
- ^ Purgatio XI, cited in the Cenni di Petro Cimabue article in the Catholic Encyclopedia
[edit] References
- Adams, Laurie Schneider (2001). Italian Renaissance Art. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 420. ISBN 0813336902.
- Battisti, Eugenio; translation by Robert and Catherine Enggass (1967). Cimabue. Pennsylvania State University Press.
- Chiellini, Monica; translation by Lisa Pelletti (1988). Cimabue. Harper & Row. ISBN 0935748903.
- Fucilla, Joseph Guerin (1987). Our Italian Surnames. Genealogical Publishing Com, 299. ISBN 0806311878.
- 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.
