The Beauty of Holiness

Giotto's Passion Frescoes as a Prelude to the Artistic Afterlife of the Supper at Emmaus

Brian Leslie Bishop

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781532698774, 9781532698781
• eBook ISBN: 9781532698798
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

In this book, Brian Bishop simply pauses to look at fifty-seven beautiful images that feature the life and death of Jesus and the supper at which he appeared three days after his burial to two broken-hearted disciples. He finds the visual approach to the gospel stories rewarding and attempts to place the paintings in some historical context as an aid to understanding, but, essentially offers pauses for thought and reflection upon world-changing events. The book may be dipped into as time and interest allows. The beautifully produced color images of wonderful works of art provide constant companionship.

PART ONE

Giotto’s Passion Frescoes in The Scrovegni Chapel.

I shall use stage directions when writing about the paintings: left and right are from the characters’ perspectives; upstage is to the back of the painting and downstage to the front. This seems entirely appropriate to me as from Cavallini and Giotto onwards painting has tended to present dramatic situations that engage the viewer imaginatively in the manner of stage presentations.

Approaching the Scrovegni Chapel,1 one is in no way prepared for the splendour of the interior. The simple brick building is itself unremarkable. It is a barrel-vaulted rectangular room the size of which is not imposing. As White observes, both inside and outside one is struck by the simplicity of the structure. There is practically no internal architectural decoration. It is as if it has been designed by a painter, perhaps Giotto himself, to provide “no competition from the building.”2 Upon this “canvas” Giotto employs: “Competent realism, strictly limited depth, and absolute subordination to the needs of the narrative scenes.”3 The “strictly limited depth” is a crucial point here. The two coretti either side of the chancel arch clearly demonstrate Giotto’s competence in three-dimensional representation. Had he chosen to use this competence when painting the frescoes, the undermining of the integrity of the wall’s surface would have seriously disturbed the overall harmony of the interior. Whether or not Giotto was the architect as well as the decorator of the Chapel, the use of space is remarkably harmonious. As Harrison writes:

The sense of overall spatial integration is furthered by the even tenor of colouring maintained throughout the individual scenes, and by the consistent scale adopted for the foreground figures.”4

The intense blue of the arched roof is a powerful integrating factor: the unity with the blue of the sky in the individual frescoes encloses the space to create a sense of entering a discrete and potent world. Approaching the altar from the West door, one is embraced by the ambience of color and tranquillity before the eyes focus on specific images.

Fig. 01 Approaching the chapel from the west door. By courtesy of the Municipality of Padua-Department of Culture.

One is immediately aware of “the solemn hush and the implicit reverence”5 of which Offner writes. It draws one in and predisposes the senses to an act of worship. The worshippers’ eyes would first have focused on Giotto’s magnificent crucifix which was suspended over the nave and is now in the adjacent Museo Civico.

Fig. 02 Crucifix. By courtesy of the Municipality of Padua-Department of Culture.

The gaze is moved aloft to where the eyes focus on the image of God the Father dispatching the angel Gabriel to initiate his salvific mission. The juxtaposition of these two images would have charged the space with spiritual energy for the devout as right there, at the top of the chancel arch—“the liturgical centre of the chapel”6— is the image of the compelling event which underpins the claims for the possibility of the infinite being conveyed in the finite world: the Incarnation. The Annunciation with which the site had long been associated spans the space between the top of the chancel arch as Gabriel kneeling to the left greets Mary who kneels to the right. This introduces the viewer/worshipper to the great overriding theme which dominates the individual representations of the Frescoes: God’s redemptive purpose as expounded by the scriptures canonical and apocryphal heard from the pulpit of the Chapel. Gary Radke writes of Giotto’s splayed construction rupturing the plane behind which all the rest of the divine narratives seem to take place. He sees this as paralleling the manner in which, at the Incarnation, the Divine breaks through the veil separating our finite world from the Eternal.7 As Derbes and Sandona point out, the fact that the “innocent eye” is lost to us is not necessarily a matter of regret.8 The creative response of an earlier viewer might well be an inspiration to consider alongside that of the artist.

But what of the individual illustrations on the north and south walls of the chapel: are they no more than illustrations of narratives to which the priest might draw the attention whilst expounding the scriptures? Might they be considered to have a theological force of their own with which the viewer might become engaged? Looking particularly at the Passion frescoes, I suggest that there is more available than illustration. Perhaps what we witness in the Scrovegni Chapel is part of that process “from historical truth to the heart of present-day man”9 of which Barth writes when discussing Lessing. Lessing himself writes of moving from gross to net with the whole edifice of Christian religion as the gross from which the net of Christ himself10 may be distilled. Giotto, it might be argued, presents some of that distillation on the walls of the Chapel. Dixon takes a postmodern stance suggesting that the analysis of a work of art is:

. . . a reciprocation, dialogue, discourse, intercourse where the self, or all the participant selves, and the work of art are mutually defined.11

But before the participation of the viewer is possible there are two necessary preconditions: the act of contemplation and the acceptance of the proposition that the inspiration claimed for purveyors of the word is also available to purveyors of images. The first of these—contemplation—requires time and a conducive atmosphere. These are difficult to find in current western culture both secular and religious where time is somewhat ironically regarded as precious, which commonly means of monetary value—“time is money!”—and church doors are commonly locked for “down time.”12 It is, I suggest, only by withdrawing from the world of bisynesse in an act of contemplation that we may fully respond to that which the frescoes have to offer. The prevalence of frescoes on monastery and convent walls and particularly in the cells of monks and nuns suggests that this practice recommended itself to the devout. Without this time to contemplate, the Chapel is reduced to an art gallery and the frescoes to art objects. Impressive as they are in such a context, they are not fulfilling their intended function as permanent presences in sacred space. It seems to me that only under such conditions is their proper role capable of being fulfilled. Under these circumstances, it is possible to argue that there is a coherence at work in the imagery of the Scrovegni Chapel Passion Frescoes just as it is to argue that there is in the words and imagery of the Fourth Gospel Passion Narrative. Here, in short, is another way of approaching or understanding the person of Jesus.

Perspectives regarding the position of Giotto in art history have changed considerably. Boccaccio writing midway through the fourteenth century is effusive regarding Giotto’s truth to nature:

Giotto, was so extraordinary a genius, that there was nothing Nature, the mother of all things, displays to us by the eternal revolution of the heavens, that he could not recreate with pencil, pen or brush so faithfully, that it hardly seemed a copy, but rather the thing itself.13.

However, Maginnis reminds us that praise in such terms was derived from the Ancients:

Astonishing naturalism . . . was the highest praise writers of antiquity had to offer . . . the elevation of naturalism was not a report on fact, but a propagandistic device.14.

Offner,15 in 1939, turned the focus to narration that, for him, predominates over verisimilitude.16 However, it appears that until quite recently the Paduan frescoes themselves excited little critical response with critics from Vasari to Ruskin paying them scant attention. “The Arena Chapel,” states Maginnis, “is, fundamentally, an early twentieth-century discovery made possible by the dethronement of mimesis which was led by Picasso,”17 all...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• The Beauty of Holiness
• Illustrations
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART ONE
• PART TWO
• Mannerism
• Concluding Remarks
• Bibliography