METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: GALLERIA 602: GIOTTO AND THE PICTORIAL REVOLUTION.

Speranza

The mercantile republic of Florence transformed European culture in the fourteenth century with the poetry of Dante Alighieri and Petrarca and with the Decameron of Boccaccio.

Giotto dominated the period with his solidly constructed figures and mastery of pictorial space.

Giotto translated the art of painting and made it modern.

The transformation can be appreciated in this gallery by comparing Berlinghiero's Byzantine-styled Madonna and Child of the 1230s with Giotto's Epiphany of a century later.

Tender Madonnas, rugged saints, and dramatic narrative paintings possess a new humanity relative to their counterparts in medieval art.

The gold backgrounds, carried over from the previous era, would have come alive when seen by candlelight. Lorenzo Monaco took his cue from northern European courtly art in depicting four Old Testament prophets seated on benches with a grave yet graceful intensity.