The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie TV - Tim Marlow TV - Kenneth Clark TV - Waldemar Januszczak TV - Matthew Collings TV - A Fresh Guide to Florence with Fab 5 Freddy TV -
Da Vinci was a great Italian painter but not the greatest. The greatest is Giotto. He is my favourite. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie II starring Geraldine McEwan & Amanda Kirby & Lynsey Baxter & Vivienne Ross et al, Brodie to class, ITV 1978
The artist they saw as their father figure began his life as a humble shepherd boy. A painter whose brush brought the Bible to life, and made art seem more substantial, more real. For many the story of Western art starts here. Great Artists with Tim Marlow s1e1: Giotto, Sky Arts 2003
The realistic treatment of human figures, expressions and in particular tangible spaces were significant developments in art. ibid.
Giotto’s emphasis is on story-telling; his paintings are human dramas; his settings have a believable feel. ibid.
In January 1337 at the age of 70 Giotto died, to be buried with almost state-like funeral in the cathedral here. ibid.
Giotto had transformed religious art, infusing painting with a new naturalism and solidity, and creating something of the illusion of pictorial space. It was his revolutionary vision that laid the foundations for the next generation – the artists of the Italian Renaissance. ibid.
Giotto ... He was chosen to decorate the church where I am now standing of St Francis. Kenneth Clark: Civilisation 3/13: Romance & Reality, BBC 1969
The first and in some ways the greatest painter of this new reality was Giotto. ibid.
One of the greatest masters of painted drama that has ever lived. ibid.
We know absolutely nothing about him until the year 1305. ibid.
Giotto was above all interested in humanity. ibid.
When people go on about the pioneering art of Giotto they talk about the new solidity of his figures, the classical influences at work on his anatomies, this new naturalism of his landscapes and all that is true but it misses the point … Giotto has found a way to imagine the unimaginable. Waldemar Januszczak, The Renaissance Unchained II: Whips, Deaths and Madonnas, BBC 2017
Before Giotto the heavenly beings of religious art had been flat symbolic beings for a thousand years. With Giotto they’re rounded, they’re physical, they have human life. Matthew Collings, This is Civilisation II, BBC 2007
Giotto brought narrative, he brought dynamism, he brought that naturalistic flavour and he was able to tell a story all in one picture. A Fresh Guide to Florence with Fab 5 Freddy, BBC 2019