HARRY QUILTER — 'GIOTTO'
The main characteristics of Giotto's style are, first, a lighter, purer tone of color than had been in use before the time of Cimabue, and a greater variety and purity of tint than had been attained by that master; second, the introduction into his compositions of a certain amount of natural detail which had been before totally neglected, and the substitution of the portraits of actual men and women for the imaginary beings that had formerly filled up the backgrounds of the Byzantine pictures; third, the power of illustrating the real meaning of his subject, not merely suggesting it as had formerly been the case; and fourth, his unrivaled dramatic power.
This dramatic power shows itself in almost every work that Giotto has left us, and even survives in the achievements of his pupils. His pictures are not scenes alone, they are situations. Besides their appropriateness of gesture and oneness of feeling, they possess the great characteristic of dramatic art in making the scene live before you, subduing its various incidents into one strain of meaning, yet keeping each incident complete and individual, as well as making it help the main purpose. A minor point in which the same quality shows is in the amount of emotion which this painter is capable of expressing by a single gesture—an amount so great that it occasionally runs some danger of lapsing into caricature, as is especially plain in such pictures as 'The Entombment' in the Arena Chapel. But in all his scenes Giotto has succeeded, not only in choosing the most appropriate figures for illustrating his meaning, but in seizing the very moment which is most significant.
But, after all, the main characteristic of Giotto's style is so intangible that it can only be felt, not described. This characteristic is the simple faith in which each of these compositions abounds; the feeling conveyed to the spectator that thus, and not otherwise, did the occurrence take place, and that the painter has not altered it a jot or tittle for his own purpose.