Artists - Cimabue

Cenni di Pepo (Giovanni) Cimabue (c 1240 in Florence, Italy — c 1302 in Florence, Italy) also known as Bencivieni Di Pepo or in modern Italian, Benevento Di Giuseppe was a Florentine painter and inventor of mosaics, superior known as the artist who discovered Giotto and with him moved towards treating figures as individuals. Cimabue is usually thought of as the last great painter working in the Byzantine tradition. The art of this time showed scenes and styles that emerged relatively flat. Cimabue was a pioneer in the move towards naturalism, as his figures showed more life-like size and shading. His works prejudiced later artists such as Giotto.
Not much is recognized about his life, and there is small surviving documentation. His life was described in Giorgio Vasari’s The Lives of the most outstanding Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, extensively regarded as the first art history book. However, Vasari complete his book over 200 years after Cimabue’s death, so although it is one of the few records we have of him, its accuracy is unknown.
From the commissions that he got, Cimabue appears to have been extremely regarded in his day. While Cimabue was at work in Florence, Duccio was the chief artist, and possibly his rival, in nearby Siena. Cimabue was specially made to paint two very large frescoes for the Basilica of St Francis of Assisi. They are on the walls of the transepts, a Crucifixion and a Deposition. Both paintings have the Cross at the centre and are filled with abundant figures. Unfortunately, these works are a dim shadow of the magnificence that they once were. Invading French crowd used the building as a stable. The straw caught alight and the frescoes were harshly damaged. The white paint had contained silver that oxidized and turned black, leaving the faces and much of the drapery of the figures in negative.
The Madonna of St Francis Another unhappily damaged work is the great Crucifix of Santa Croce reproduced on this page. It was the key work of art that was lost in the flood in Florence in 1966. Much of the paint from the body and face washed away.







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