Giotto His Life And Art 2010 Full Movie Clive Rich

Near Florence, along the gentle line of Apennine hills which sear the horizon, there's a small village of farmers. A few houses of grey stone among cypress and oak. It is Colle di Vespignano. In the modest house of young Bondoni, his wife has just brought to light a son, Giotto. He will have a happy childhood, beside two vigilant and affectionate parents, surrounded by a nature rich in colours. Each different season. The garden of Tuscany. The child Giotto spends long afternoons watching over the flock at pasture. He has learned to paint so true to life that everyone in the area knows of his talent. Giotto's early artistic vocation does not escape Bondoni, who decidedly does not want his son to be a farmer. Too tiring a life and what's more, too poor. No, that will not be Giotto's future. He must learn a trade and become a skilful artisan so that he can earn well. A few hours away by horse is Florence with her schools and her art. The city is experiencing a period of splendid expansion. In the industrial and commercial spheres, Florence is at the forefront in Italy and in Europe. Giotto enrolls as an apprentice in one of the most important and prestigious guilds, that of woolworking. He would work hard at learning these skills. But a few years later, we find Giotto often abandoning his loom to go to the gardens of Santa Croce to peer into the workshop of Master Cimabue, the most important painter of the epoch. Cimabue had also as a child skipped school to run to the church of Santa Maria Novella to watch the then famous Greek painters as they worked. In the boy Giotto, Cimabue must have seen himself enough so as to decide to receive him into his workshop after having consulted with his father Bondone, who is not at all displeased. On the contrary, the idea of having a painter for a son was a source of pride. And besides, it was well known, everyone knew just how much Cimabue earned. Giotto would spend many years in Cimabue's workshop, a long apprenticeship, first grinding paints, then amongst the master's assistants, the best. Giotto knows he has found his path and he feels ready for the task. But before work, he finds love. She is a young Florentine. Rishavuta is her name. It is love at first sight for both of them, a love which blossoms into a marriage brightened by eight children, four boys and four girls. Rishavuta is a strong woman. The role of Giotto's wife is neither easy nor slight. She must be willing to resign herself to seeing him go wherever he is called if and when they call him to work. To wait long, the first call arrives from Assisi. In the basilica of St. Francis, built above the saint's tomb, the friars want to finish up as quickly as possible the frescoes begun by Cimabue. And most likely, it is Cimabue himself who suggests they call Giotto. It's a great opportunity for Giotto, who is little more than 20 years old. He must paint two bays of the upper basilica, a few stories from the Old and New Testament. Here is a chance to demonstrate the measure of his talent. The Franciscans have convents scattered in every part of Italy. They could become valued clients. Giotto would work in the basilica for several years, in which he dedicated himself so completely to the study of the Franciscan rule that he would later become a third order, that is to say, a lay Franciscan. In the basilica, work on the frescoes is by now concluded. Just enough time to admire them, and Giotto is summoned by the general minister of the Franciscans, Friar Giovanni Muro, another commission. The year 1300 has been proclaimed the first jubilee in history by Pope Bonifacio VIII. So great is the admiration and faith in Giotto that he has given the commission of greatest importance and highest prestige, the narration of the story of St Francis on the ample walls of the upper basilica. 28 large frescoes in which the life of the saint is evoked in its most meaningful moments. God gave to the world, not long before the birth of Giotto, one of the greatest imitators of Christ that the world has ever known, Francis. Giotto felt inspired. He felt that he himself could reach Christ if he could depict the life of the blessed man of Assisi as no one else had ever done. Such was his ardor in the representing of those facts and those miracles that Giotto invented a new manner of painting, more clear, more natural, more solemn. Francis as a protagonist, handsome and imposing. Free from the coldness of legends, the saint becomes a man among other real men and women in cities and castles, with trees and animals. He paints nature in all its richness and manifold reality, restoring to things the three-dimensionality that they have in real life as it unfolds before our eyes. It is a new way of painting, a radical departure from the Byzantine mannerism still in use at that time. The admirable fusion created between visible and invisible reality, between man and God, between earth and heaven, finds its echo in Francis, when in a moment of great physical suffering, a guest of Claire's at San Damiano, that small church he had repaired with his own hands at the beginning of his vocation, St. Francis composes a hymn. Revealing the lineaments of creation with love and praises to God, he reminds the world of the true sense of creation, a never-ceasing hymn, that day chants to night and night to day. O Most High, Omnipotent, Good Lord, Thine be the praises, the glory, the honor, and every blessing. Be praised, O Lord, with all Thy creatures. It's 1299, and Pope Bonifacio VIII summons Giotto to Rome for an important commission, the subject of Pope himself in the act of proclaiming the first holy year in history. Giotto's prestige is once again confirmed, and the earnings are also excellent. With the money set aside in Assisi and Rome, he would build his house in Florence. His good relations with the Franciscans begin to bear fruit. In the church of St. Francis at Rimini, he paints a crucifix on wood. In Florence, the crucifix in Santa Maria Novella. The Madonna with child and angels at San Giorgio alla Costa. And in the church of Ognisanto, the Great Maestà. A year later, in 1302, Giotto is summoned by the friar's minor to Padua. In the dimness and silence of the basilica, he would fresco several walls, which unfortunately today not a trace remains. But here he would make an important encounter. He is approached by the rich financier Enrico degli Scrovegni, who since the death of his father, Reginaldo, has become head of a great Paduan family. His father had not been exactly highly esteemed in Padua. The church had gone so far as to deny him a church funeral. A ruthless loan shark, Reginaldo was also loathed by the Paduan people. Enrico, however, hoped to redeem the memory of his father and decides to build near his palace a church dedicated to the Virgin of the Annunciation. And he asks Giotto to design it and to decorate all of the inside walls. Giotto would work for more than three years. On March the 25th, 1305, the holy day of the Annunciation, the building is consecrated by Pope Clement IV, successor to Bonifacio VIII, who had died the previous year. The frescoes within this little church signal the moment of Giotto's ripe maturity and are by unanimous consensus his masterpiece. Once the chapel's threshold has been crossed, one finds oneself suddenly within a space filled completely with colour and light. Along these walls, Giotto begins a journey through the sacred history of both the Old and New Testaments. The redemption that points so fundamental to the Christian history of humanity begins here with the narration of the events leading up to the birth of Mary. We see first the story of Mary's parents, Joachim and Anne. The first years of the Virgin's life. Her marriage to Joseph. The birth of Jesus. His childhood and adolescence. And then finally his arrival in Jerusalem. This fresco introduces the story of the Passion of Christ. Giotto narrates the episodes that prelude the capture. Then the humiliation. And then finally the death on the cross. The full humanity of Christ, vulnerable and fragile. His pain and fear of death reveal all the agony of the sacrifice. In the bystanders' faces, we see the immediacy of their feelings. The angels in the heavens echo the pain of the earth. The journey continues. Beneath these frescoes on the side walls, Giotto paints several pairs of personified vices and virtues. The vices are conquered by exercising the opposite virtue. Thus injustice is won over by virtue. Injustice is won over with justice. Rage with temperance. Avarice with generosity. Inconstancy is won over with willpower. Foolishness with prudence. Infidelity with faith. And desperation with hope and fervor in the service of God. Once we have conquered these enemies of eternal salvation, we gain the certainty that paradise is there, ready to gather us up with open arms at the end of our journey towards the beyond. On that day, the dead will rise, and along with the living they will be judged and destined to eternal life or to perpetual damnation. It's the last judgment. The largest fresco in the chapel, covering all of the entryway wall. The last image we see before leaving. Here Giotto wants to remind us of the second coming of Christ, which concludes the sequence of sacred events which began with his incarnation. The language is simple and without metaphors. The truth of the scriptures is rendered in images. The word is visible in the gestures, the expressions of the figures. Dead were the dead, and the living seemed alive. With these words, Dante Alighieri, the other great Tuscan, commented on the fresco. Dante had come to visit Giotto from nearby Ravenna, where he had been forced into exile. The two had already known each other for several years. It is difficult to say exactly what sort of relationship Giotto and Dante had. One finds fortune in the same Florence that the other must leave. On the one hand, Dante engaged and impetuous, quick to rain down vehemence, disdainful of compromise, and tormented by what was happening in Florence. On the other hand, Giotto, for whom the world in which he lives is probably the best of all possible worlds. For Giotto, Pope Bonifacio VIII was above reproach. Besides, the pontiffess was an excellent client. For Dante, he was instead the prince of the new Pharisees. The Franciscans, with whom Giotto had such cordial relations, are rather for Dante unworthy heirs of St. Francis' message. Then, too, Giotto had frescoed his masterpiece for Enrico de' Scrovegni, whose father, in the Divine Comedy, Dante hurls into hell, into the flaming circle of moneylenders tormented by a rain of fire. His words convey all of his disgust. At this, he slewed his mouth, and then he stuck his tongue out, like an ox that licks its nose. For Giotto, however, Dante had nothing but esteem and admiration. In painting, Cimabue thought he held the field. But now it's Giotto they acclaim. The former only keeps a shadowed fame. Giotto is by now a rich man, commissions await him in Florence, and many young painters are anxious to study in his workshop. He's earned much more money than any other painter of his time and of that before him. He sells his paintings for as much as 800 florins, and for 500 he hires out students from his workshop. To consolidate his wealth, Giotto rents out houses, buys up property, and is always ready to go to court on questions of boundaries. Attentive to exchange rates and to high and low interest, he plays the market. No fewer than six lawyers work for him. In 1310, Giotto is once again in Rome, this time at the invitation of Cardinal Jacopo Stefaneschi, and for the fabulous payment of 2,200 florins, he creates a large mosaic called the Navicella, or Little Ship, in the portico of St. Peter's Basilica. Here, the apostle's boat is surprised by a storm on Lake Tiberiade, and Christ and Peter walk on its waters. But in 1500, the basilica is expanded, and the mosaic destroyed. Today, a copy painted in the new portico reminds us of Giotto's great work. Giotto returns to Assisi, the fresco, the lower basilica, with stories of Jesus and Mary, in part similar to those in Padua. In these frescoes, however, helpers collaborate extensively in the re-elaboration of the stories. 1326 will be the first centenary of the death of St. Francis, and in the lower basilica, there are still large areas to fresco, the vaults in particular, four triangular spaces above the altar. Here, Giotto lavishly interprets the Franciscan virtues, poverty, obedience, and chastity, with allegorical images. Never before had poverty been exalted with a more lush profusion of elements. Gold chips substitute the blue of the sky. Francis, in his glory, above the clouds, in heaven, raising the victorious flag of the altar Christus, is transformed into an imposing oriental idol, dressed in glittering embroidery. Obedience, ensconced in a convent, the ideal place for discipline. Chastity, safe in a castle, a path that requires bitter battles to preserve it. Before this general impression of joyous outpouring, of happiness that transcends every pain, it is difficult not to think that it was indeed in this period, as some scholars maintain, that Dante wrote in his paradise. And in the center, great wings spread apart. More than a thousand festive angels shone, each one distinct in radiance and in art. I saw there, smiling at this song and sport, she whose beauty entered like a bliss into the eyes of all that sainted court. Like living flame, their faces seemed to glow, their wings were gold, and all their bodies shone more dazzling white than any earthly snow. In the next few years in Florence, Giotto would fresco in the church of Santo Croce chapels for the Bardis and Peruzzi, the two richest banking families in Florence. The king of England as well as the king of Naples were numbered among their clients. Giotto would paint St. John the Baptist and John the Evangelist for the Peruzzi chapel. St. Francis for the Bardi. Here, too, Giotto continues his Franciscan theme, a more bourgeois version, however, without the scenes of miracles and wonders. This time, episodes abound in which popes, princes, and the rich hold sway. A work of Giotto's was something simply not to be done without for those who could pay. Florence, November of the year 1333. The river Arno floods its banks and inundates the city. It's a real catastrophe. Many bridges are swept away by the waters. Who is summoned to restore the city and continue its embellishment? Giotto, of course, the greatest painter of his time, perhaps of all times. Florence is proud of him. And on April the 12th, 1334, Giotto is nominated by municipal decree master and governor of the work on the cathedral and architect of Florence's walls and fortification. It is said that in the entire world, none is as more fit for the task than Giotto. Giotto would continue the work begun on the cathedral by Arnolfo di Cambio, considered by all the best sculptor of his time. Arnolfo had been dead for nearly 30 years, but he was very much alive to Giotto, who had been devoted to the sculptor architect. Giotto, however, is not interested in completing the half-finished facade of the cathedral. Instead, he designs its bell tower. Almost 70 years old, he goes to work with an enthusiasm that he hasn't felt for a long time. Giotto wants to express his genius here to create a synthesis of painting, sculpture, and architecture. The work proceeds, but not without stirring up a certain amount of irritation and discord. There are those who think that the bell tower, which will be more than 80 meters tall, does not have an adequate base. There are discussions and arguments, but the work goes ahead, and Giotto sculpts with his own hands the bas-reliefs, which ornament the bell tower's base, the history of man's great adventure, creation, original sin, and then finally man as the ruler of the world, gazing up at heaven. But Giotto would not live to see the bell tower soar into the blue sky of Florence, nor would he see the modifications to which his project was subjected. He is old and can no longer climb up the scaffolding and paint-splattered make his great brushstrokes, nor is his hand strong enough to sculpt the marble bas-reliefs. Nevertheless, he is surrounded by his devoted students and the choir of his admirers. The great arc of Giotto's active life here aptly concludes. On the 8th of January, 1337, when death arrives, the municipality of Florence unhesitatingly honors him with public and solemn ceremonies, and buries him in its cathedral. Florence is dismayed and moved. She will be poorer without her Giotto. I am he by means of whom painting rose from the dead and whose hands were able and quick. That which was missing in my art was also missing in nature, and no one painted more or better than I. Do you see the tower, its beautiful bells ringing? That also rose to the sky by my design. But what need is there to say these things? I am Giotto. This name is worth more than any long poem.