The Crucifixion

Giotto, early Renaissance master, combined naturalism and emotion to connect the viewer to the scene.  Found in the Arena Chapel of Padua, Giotto’s Crucifixion embodies these principles.  In this fresco, Jesus is positioned in the center, hung on a cross above a skull, which signifies that this is Golgotha.  On his left, soldiers are fighting over who gets to keep Christ’s clothes, while on his right, followers of Christ weep.  In this fresco, Giotto breaks away from the medieval style of painting, where subjects are stiff and stylized, with little dimension.  Instead, the figures in this piece stand in a variety of posed and have been painted with much more dimension.  Christ’s body is gaunt, with bones showing, and his hair is damp with sweat. Those gathered around do not stand side by side, but rather in groups, with glimpses of more people behind them, giving a sense of perspective.  The naturalistic method used by Giotto creates a much more life-like image; the viewer could feel like they were watching the crucifixion.

The emotion that Giotto renders in the scene also connects the viewer to the image.  St. Peter looks disappointedly at the bickering Roman soldiers.  All of Christ’s followers and the angels wear expressions of sorrow.  Jesus’s mother swoons in grief as she turns her head away from her son’s lifeless body.  Mary Magdalene expresses her grief passionately as she falls to her knees and weeps over Jesus’s bloody feet.  Giotto was inspired by the mendicant orders cropping up in his time.  The mendicant orders, especially the Franciscans, preached an emotional, energetic sort of spirituality; one should feel the pain of Christ’s suffering and the joy of knowing God.  Giotto’s aim in this fresco is to make the viewers feel the same as those in the painting.  The naturalistic view lets the viewer to feel as though they are in the painting, and the emotions evoke the grief and sorrow the followers would have felt, allowing the viewer to understand and feel the suffering of Christ's Crucifixion.  

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