The first renovator of Tuscan painting and master of Giotto, Cimabue remains a mystery. We only know about ten paintings by him, a few mosaics in Florence and Pisa as well as very degraded frescoes in the basilica of Assisi. As for the archives, they are almost silent. They barely teach us that “Cimabue, painter of Florence” was in Rome in 1272 alongside cardinals, a sign of his fame, then he received the commission for a mosaic and an altarpiece in Pisa, between 1301 and 1302, a few months before his death.
The recent rediscovery of a small panel from a diptych by the painter, The Derision of Christacquired for 24 million euros in 2019 by the Louvre, which had it restored, led the museum to reopen this enigmatic file. Especially since the artist’s great masterpiece, the Majesty of Pisa, has also just benefited from a spectacular restoration. Yesterday austere in appearance, under layers of yellowed varnish, this painting, more than 4 meters high, has regained all the freshness of its tender pinks and lapis lazuli blues on the gold background.
Taken to the Louvre under the Empire in 1812, this Virgin in Majesty was forgotten during the restitutions of 1815 requested by Italy. Without hard feelings, the curators of the museums of Pisa, Siena, Turin and Florence have today granted major loans to the great Parisian museum which explores, through around forty works by different artists, the pictorial revolution introduced by Cimabue.
Soft, shaded drapes
The exhibition opens with Tuscan paintings from the first half of the 13th century.e century still very marked by oriental icons: frontal, impassive figures, in their clothes with architectural folds. Giunta Pisano is still inspired by it, in the middle of the 13th centurye century, in this painted cross where the crucified retains a fairly abstract anatomy, despite a new painful twist. Loaned by the National Gallery in Washington, the Madonna Kahn and the Madone Mellonon a throne, between two angels in medallions, allow us to evoke the Byzantine prototype which would have influenced Cimabue for his great Majesty.
Except that the Florentine will give this Virgin presenting her son (“Hodigitria”) a completely new naturalness. Instead of stiff folds, highlighted in lines of gold, he prefers soft, lightly shaded drapes. He even dares to wear a transparent veil which allows a glimpse of Christ’s calf, above his chubby foot. The hands, yesterday stylized, now feature phalanges. And the angels, around the throne, are the size of very real children… Cimabue also copied Arabic inscriptions on the frame – revealed by the restoration – borrowed from Islamic objects brought from the Holy Land.
The young Sienese Duccio di Buoninsegna, who met him in Florence, would appropriate these innovations. Its Madonna of Crevole takes the transparent veils of his elder, but he pushes the naturalness a notch further, with Christ who crosses his legs and extends his arm to grasp Mary’s veil. Long given to this artist, the Madone Gualino offers an equally lively child. However, many similarities with the Majesty of the Louvre encouraged Thomas Bohl, curator at the Louvre, to instead return this Madonna to Cimabue, who in turn would have been inspired by the daring of his young disciple.
-Giotto’s striking naturalism
The Louvre brought together The Derision of Christ from Cimabue to two other elements of this dismembered diptych, coming from London and New York. Next to it, panels on similar subjects, delivered twenty years later by Duccio, show the rapidity of the progress made in a generation. In the eldest, the agitated crowd of executioners, their muscular legs, their realistic socks with toes give the scenes a real liveliness. In his younger brother, all these characters took on real relief in refined palatial architecture, despite a stammering perspective.
Giotto will perfect this and give his figures an even more striking expressiveness. Seized with the big Majesty in the church of San Francesco in Pisa and also remained in the Louvre, Saint Francis receiving the stigmata testifies to his genius, to make the solid body of the Poverello like the vibrant leaves of the small oaks or, on the predella, the different species of birds listening to the preacher. It is so obvious that in Assisi, Giotto quickly supplanted his master Cimabue in the great fresco project and, according to Dante, “darkened the glory” of this pioneer forever.
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To see, to read
A documentary,From Cimabue to Giotto, the first Italian mastersdirected by Juliette Garcias, will be broadcast on arte.tv from March 9 and on Arte on March 16. It allows you to discover works by Cimabue that remained in Italy with the insights of great art historians.
The catalogunder the direction of Thomas Bohl, brings together the contributions of around fifteen authors. Ed Louvre/Silvana Editoriale, 279 p., €42.
