Cimabue
- original name Bencivieni Di Pepo, modern Italian Benvenuto Di Giuseppe
painter and mosaicist, the last great Italian artist inthe Byzantine
style,which had dominated early medieval painting in Italy. Among his
surviving works are the frescoes of New Testament scenes in the upper
church of S. Francesco, Assisi; the “Sta. Trinita Madonna” (c. 1290;
Uffizi, Florence); and the “Madonna Enthroned with St. Francis” (c.
1290–95; lower church of S. Francesco).
Cimabue's style provided the firm foundation upon which rested the art
of Giotto and Duccio in the 14th century, although he was superseded in
his own lifetime by these artists, both of whom he had influenced and
perhaps trained. His great contemporary, Dante, recognized the
importance of Cimabue and placed him at the forefront of Italian
painters. Giorgio Vasari, in his Lives of the Most Eminent Italian
Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1550), begins his collection
of biographies with the life of Cimabue. Art historiographers from the
14th century to the present have recognized the art and career of
Cimabue as the dividing line between the old and the new traditions in
western European painting.
The earliest biography of Cimabue, by Vasari, states that he was born in
1240 and died in 1300. The dates can only be approximations, for it is
documented that Cimabue was aliveand working in Pisa in 1302. The only
other document relative to his life identifies him as a master painter
and witness to a document signed in Rome in 1272. From this it can be
concluded that he was born prior to 1251. Other documents indicate that
he was christened Bencivieni di Pepo, or Benvenuto di Giuseppe in modern
Italian. Cimabue was a nickname that through an error later became a
family name.
Nothing is known of his early training. Vasari's assertion thathe was
apprenticed to Greek Byzantine painters living in Italy is probably an
attempt to explain both the style and the sudden emergence of this
genius. He was certainly influenced by the Italo-Byzantine painter
Giunta Pisano and by Coppo di Marcovaldo and may have been an apprentice
to Coppo.
Cimabue's character may be reflected in his name, which canperhaps best
be translated as “bullheaded.” An anonymous commentator in a work on
Dante written in 1333–34 said that Cimabue was so proud and demanding
that if others found fault with his work, or if he found something
displeasing in it himself, he would destroy the work, no matter how
valuable. It is perhaps significant that in the Divine Comedy
Dante places Cimabue among the proud in Purgatory. And the poet refers
to him to illustrate the transience of earthly fame: “Cimabue thought to
hold the field in painting, and now Giotto hath the cry.” But pride in
his own accomplishments and a high personal standard of excellence
separated Cimabue from the anonymous artists of the Middle Ages.
Only Cimabue's last work, the mosaic of “St. John the Evangelist,” in
the Duomo of Pisa, is dated (1301–02). The large “Crucifix,” in S.
Domenico, Arezzo, is generally accepted as his earliest work and datable
before 1272. The frescoes in the upper church of S. Francesco, Assisi,
were probably executed between 1288 and 1290. The period 1290–95
includes the large “Crucifix” for Sta. Croce in Florence—about 70
percent destroyed in the floods of 1966, though restoration has been
completed; the “Sta. Trinita Madonna,” an altarpiece now in Florence's
Uffizi; and the “Madonna Enthroned with St. Francis,” in the lower
church of S. Francesco at Assisi.
Despite the small number of Cimabue's works that have survived, they
fully support the reputation that the artist has acquired. In certain
formal or more “official” commissions, such as crucifixes and large
altarpieces, Cimabue adhered closely to the formal vocabulary of the
Byzantine tradition. And yet he breathes new emotive content into the
abstract or stylized forms. In the fresco cycle at Assisi, Cimabue found
an especially receptive patron, for the art commissioned by the
Franciscans from Cimabue's time on is generally characterized by a
dramatic and emotive narrative.
Along with the traditional stylization of the human form, Cimabue seems
to have been among the first to return to a close observation of nature.
In a highly formal altarpiece such as the “Sta. Trinita Madonna,” he
introduces at the baseof the throne four prophets who are modelled
through light and dark in a highly sculptural manner that seems far in
advance of its date. Cimabue seems also to have been one of the first to
recognize the potentialities of painted architecture, which he
introduced into his scenes to give an indication of place and a
heightened sense of three-dimensionality. The fresco “The Four
Evangelists,” in the vault of the crossing of the upper church at
Assisi, is sculpturally conceived, but its solidity and bulk are
heightened by the crystalline city views that accompany each of the
figures. The view of Rome that accompanies St. Mark, for example, is not
only one of the earliest recognizable views of the city but is also one
of the first in which the buildings seem solid and separated one from
the other by a clearly defined space. This concern with the illusion of
space and with a three-dimensional form occupying that space is rarely
met with in medieval painting prior to Cimabue, but it is highly
characteristic of Cimabue's leading student and rival, Giotto.
In Cimabue's more formal works he follows tradition closely, but he
brings to that tradition a heightened sense of drama. After him the
Byzantine tradition in Italy died out, partly because it had been
superseded by a new style, but also because he had exhausted all the
possibilities inherent in the tradition. In his less formal works he was
able to exploit agrowing interest in narrative that had been inherent in
the Byzantine tradition but never fully developed. Finally, he brought
to Italian painting a new awareness of space and of sculptural form. By
his own personality and by his contributions to painting he merits
Vasari's characterization of him as the first Florentine painter and the
first painter of “modern” times.
John R. Spencer
(Encyclopaedia Britannica)
