Between Greek and Latin manner: Cimabue

I want here consider a work that is attributed from Vasari to Cimabue (1240-1302), a painter that has seen and studied Giunta Pisano and he was master of Giotto too. But the plastic and characteristic physical presence of figures on Giotto painter, that we can see on painters of Assisi, has origin from Cimabue, and we can document this relevance plasticity on a work of Cimabue(Figs.1-3) that is a contradiction between will of costumer, because Greek manner is certainly will of costumer, and will of Cimabue, this is plasticity, that he has used both Madonna of Servi(Fig.4), Bologna datable around 1280-1285 and Madonna on the throne(Fig.1), datable around 1302, date of die Cimabue’s. We must consider that Cimabue has worked cloth of these Madonna with a freedom very much strong, because the figures of angels and lines of figures are very worked and plastics, and has passed the rigid line of Christ(Fig.5), because by now the Greek manner is memory of some less painter, by now, Giotto and his presence in Assisi has given form and plasticity to figures; certainly this judgment is right, but we must consider that the Madonna of Servi is former that Madonna of Louvre, and we can see both plasticity and form of same master, then we must consider that plasticity of Giotto is logic outcome of form that Cimabue has used former, although it isn’t so evident how Giotto.

Alessandro Lusana 

 Fig.1

Fig.2

Fig.3

Fig.4

Fig.5