PLATES IV, V, AND VI — 'NATIVITY,' 'ENTOMBMENT,' AND 'RESURRECTION'
The Arena Chapel, Padua, was built in the year 1303 by Enrico Scrovegno, a wealthy citizen of that place, upon the site of a Roman amphitheater or arena. The outside of this little building is devoid of all architectural embellishment, but any exterior bareness is more than counterbalanced by the interior, the decoration of which was, in 1305 or 1306, intrusted to Giotto, at that time the acknowledged master of painting in Italy. With the exception of the frescos in the choir, which were added by his followers in later years, all the paintings in the chapel—thirty-eight in number—are by his hand, and present a scheme of decoration that is unsurpassed even in the churches of Italy. "Though they lack the subtleties of later technical development," write Vasari's recent editors, "these frescos of the Arena Chapel, in their composition, their simplicity, their effectiveness as pure decoration, and in their dramatic force, are some of the finest things in the whole history of art, ancient or modern."
Arranged in three tiers on the side walls of the chapel, Giotto's frescos illustrate the apocryphal history of Joachim and Anna, the life of the Virgin, scenes from the life of Christ, and below, allegorical figures of the Virtues and Vices. On the entrance wall is a 'Last Judgment,' and opposite, a 'Christ in Glory.' The vaulted ceiling, colored blue and studded with gold stars, is adorned with medallions of Christ and the Virgin, saints and prophets. "Wherever the eye turns," writes Mr. Quilter, "it meets a bewilderment of color pure and radiant and yet restful to the eye, tints which resemble in their perfect harmony of brightness the iridescence of a shell. The whole interior, owing perhaps to its perfect simplicity of form and absence of all other decoration than the frescos, presents less the aspect of a building decorated with paintings than that of some gigantic opal in the midst of which the spectator stands."
'The Nativity,' reproduced in Plate IV, is the first of the second tier of frescos. It is painted almost wholly in a quiet harmony of blue and gray. Ruskin has called attention to the natural manner in which the Virgin turns upon her couch to assist in laying down the Child brought to her by an attendant, and to the figure of St. Joseph seated below in meditation. On the right are the shepherds, their flocks beside them, listening to the angels who, "all exulting, and as it were confused with joy, flutter and circle in the air like birds." On the left the ox and ass stretch their heads towards the Virgin's couch.
'The Entombment,' Plate V, is impressive in its passionate intensity. The women seated on the ground supporting the dead Christ are overwhelmed with grief, other mourners are grouped around; and in the figure of St. John with his arms extended Giotto has preserved the antique gesture of sorrow. Angels wheel and circle through the air in a frenzied agony of grief. In the background a barren hill and the leafless branches of a tree are relieved against a darkening sky.
'The Resurrection,' Plate VI, shows us the soldiers in deep sleep beside the red porphyry tomb on which two majestic, white-robed angels are seated. Mary Magdalene, in a long crimson cloak, kneels with outstretched arms at the feet of the risen Christ, who by his expressive gesture warns her, "Noli me tangere!"
This fresco and that of 'The Resurrection' are among the most impressive in the chapel, and are comparatively little injured by time and dampness.