A new exhibition at the Louvre reveals the secrets of Cimabue, the mysterious painter who revolutionized art in Italy at the end of the 13th century. Find out how he opened the way to naturalism…
An exceptional exhibition presented at the Louvre Museum from January 22, 2025 lifts the veil on Cimabue, a visionary painter of the end of the 13th century in Italy. Although little is known about his life, his work marked a decisive turning point in the history of Western art by paving the way for naturalism.
A precursor of realism in painting
Between 1280 and 1290, Cimabue developed a radically innovative pictorial style for the time. Breaking with the codes of representation inherited from Oriental and Byzantine art, he seeks to create an illusion of three-dimensional space and to render bodies and objects with unprecedented realism. His paintings bear witness to a quest for naturalism who would profoundly influence subsequent generations of Italian painters, starting with his students Giotto et Duccio di Buoninsegna.
La Maestà, a founding masterpiece
Among the forty works brought together for the exhibition, two monumental paintings by Cimabue, whose restoration has just been completed, occupy a central place. There Majestya striking Virgin and Child brought back from Italy following the Napoleonic campaigns, is often considered to be “the birth certificate of Western painting” by art historians.
Its restoration was an opportunity to discover new details that we no longer perceived at all, including the subtlety of the colors, including the luminous brilliance of the blues all painted in lapis lazuli, and fragments of Arabic writing, in which he was one of the first to take an interest.
Thomas Bohl, curator and curator of the exhibition
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An exceptional ensemble brought together for the first time
The other major work is The Derision of Christa small panel rediscovered in 2019 in private homes in France and classified as a national treasure. It is part of a diptych of which the Louvre is presenting for the first time the only three elements known to date.
According to the curator, Cimabue anchors the scene “in the daily life of his time, daring to dress the characters in clothes of his time”, thus echoing the concerns of the Franciscans, promoters of a more immediate spirituality. The exhibition also brings together rare illuminated manuscripts and compares paintings by the master’s predecessors and successors to better understand his decisive contribution.
An aura that has fascinated for 7 centuries
Despite the little information available on his biography, Cimabue has continued to captivate artists, poets and historians since the Middle Ages. It is Dante who forged his legend at the beginning of the 14th century in a passage from the Divine Comedygiving it an aura that has never faded.
If Cimabue’s places of life and work remain uncertain, we nevertheless know that he worked in the largest churches in Italy and enjoyed extraordinary fame during his lifetime. The exhibition ends with the presentation of the monumental Saint Francis of Assisi receiving the stigmata of Giotto, witness to the fruitful heritage left by the man who was his master.
Through this unique journey, the Louvre offers a fascinating dive into the world of a mysterious creator who profoundly revolutionized the codes of painting. A unique opportunity to (re)discover an essential milestone in Western art, whose influence is still felt today.
