Cimabue

File:Cimabue (attr.), tavola di san francesco, museo della porziuncola.jpg]]

Little is known about Cimabue's early life. One source that recounts his career is Vasari's Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, but its accuracy is uncertain.

File:San Francesco Cimabue.jpg

He was born in Florence and died in Pisa. Hayden Maginnis speculates that he could have trained in Florence under masters who were culturally connected to Byzantine art. The art historian Pietro Toesca attributed the Crucifixion in the church of San Domenico in Arezzo to Cimabue, dating around 1270, making it the earliest known attributed work that departs from the Byzantine style.{{Cite book|title=Art in Renaissance Italy|last1=Paoletti|first1=John T.|last2=Radke|first2=Gary M.|publisher=Laurence King Publishing|year=2005|page=51}} Cimabue's Christ is bent, and the clothes have the golden striations that were introduced by Coppo di Marcovaldo.

Around 1272, Cimabue is documented as being present in Rome,{{Cite book|title=A Short History of Italian Painting|last1=Van Vechten Brown|first1=Alice|last2=Rankin|first2=William|publisher=J.M. Dent & Sons, ltd.|year=1914|pages=41}} and a little later he made another Crucifix for the Florentine church of Santa Croce.{{Cite news|title=Carpentry and Symmetry in Cimabue's Santa Croce Crucifix|last=Brink|first=Joel|date=October 1978|work=The Burlington Magazine|issue=907|volume=120}} Now restored, having been damaged by the 1966 Arno River flood, the work was larger and more advanced than the one in Arezzo, with traces of naturalism perhaps inspired by the works of Nicola Pisano.

According to Vasari, Cimabue, while travelling from Florence to Vespignano, came upon the 10-year-old Giotto (c. 1277) drawing his sheep with a rough rock upon a smooth stone. He asked if Giotto would like to come and stay with him, which the child accepted with his father's permission. Vasari elaborates that during Giotto's apprenticeship, he allegedly painted a fly on the nose of a portrait Cimabue was working on; the teacher attempted to sweep the fly away several times before he understood his pupil's prank.{{cite book |last=Eimerl |first=Sarel |others=et al |title=The World of Giotto: c. 1267–1337 |url=https://archive.org/details/worldofgiottoc100eime |url-access=registration |publisher=Time-Life Books |year=1967 |isbn=0-900658-15-0 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/worldofgiottoc100eime/page/82 82], 85}} Many scholars now discount Vasari's claim that he took Giotto as his pupil, citing earlier sources that suggest otherwise.

Around 1280, Cimabue painted the Maestà, originally displayed in the church of San Francesco at Pisa, but now at the Louvre.{{Cite book|title=Tuscany & Umbria|last1=Maxwell|first1=Virginia|last2=Leviton|first2=Alex|last3=Pettersen|first3=Leif|publisher=Lonely Planet|year=2010|pages=364}} This work established a style that was followed subsequently by numerous artists, including Duccio di Buoninsegna in his Rucellai Madonna (in the past, wrongly attributed to Cimabue) as well as Giotto. Other works from the period, which were said to have heavily influenced Giotto, include a Flagellation (Frick Collection),Holly Flora (2006), Cimabue and Early Italian Devotional Painting (The Frick Collection). mosaics for the Baptistery of Florence (now largely restored), the Maestà at the Santa Maria dei Servi in Bologna and the Madonna in the Pinacoteca of Castelfiorentino. A workshop painting, perhaps assignable to a slightly later period, is the Maestà with Saints Francis and Dominic now in the Uffizi.{{Cite web |title=Madonna Enthroned with the Child, St. Francis, St. Dominic, and two Angels attributed to Cimabue |url=https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/cimabue-madonna-enthroned |access-date=2 March 2024 |website=Uffizi Galleries}}

During the pontificate of Pope Nicholas IV, the first Franciscan pope,{{Cite book|title=Dante and the Franciscans: Poverty and the Papacy in the 'Commedia'|last=Havely|first=Nick|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2004|page=39}} Cimabue worked in Assisi.{{Cite book|title=The Image of St. Francis: Responses to Sainthood in the Thirteenth Century|last=Brooke|first=Rosalind B.|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2006|pages=352}} At Assisi, in the transept of the Lower Basilica of San Francesco, he created a fresco named Madonna with Child Enthroned, Four Angels and St Francis. The left portion of this fresco is lost, but it may have shown St Anthony of Padua (the authorship of the painting has been recently disputed for technical and stylistic reasons). Cimabue was subsequently commissioned to decorate the apse and the transept of the Upper Basilica of Assisi, in the same period of time that Roman artists were decorating the nave. The cycle he created there comprises scenes from the Gospels, the lives of the Virgin Mary, St Peter and St Paul. The paintings are now in poor condition because of oxidation of the brighter colours that were used by the artist.

File:Cimabue 025.jpg, 1287–1288, Panel, {{convert|448|x|390|cm|1|abbr=on}}, Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence]]

The Maestà of Santa Trinita, dated to c. 1290–1300, which was originally painted for the church of Santa Trinita in Florence, is now in the Uffizi Gallery. The softer expression of the characters suggests that it was influenced by Giotto, who was by then already active as a painter.{{Cite book|title=Art in Renaissance Italy|last1=Paoletti|first1=John T.|last2=Radke|first2=Gary M.|publisher=Laurence King Publishing|year=2005|pages=85}}

Cimabue spent the last period of his life, 1301 to 1302, in Pisa. There, he was commissioned to finish a mosaic of Christ Enthroned, originally begun by Maestro Francesco, in the apse of the city's cathedral. Cimabue was to create the part of the mosaic depicting St John the Evangelist, which remains the sole surviving work documented as being by the artist.{{cite book|last=White|first=John|title=Art and architecture in Italy 1250-1400|date=26 May 1993|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=9707250208|page=175|edition=3rd Revised}} Cimabue died around 1302.{{Cite book|title=Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia|last=Kleinhenz|first=Christopher|publisher=Routledge|year=2004|pages=223–224}}

{{Gallery

|File:Pisa - Duomo di Pisa - 2023-09-29 14-36-41 001.jpeg|The mosaic in its architectural context

|File:Cimabue 001.jpg|The figure of Saint John, the only documented work by Cimabue

}}

According to Vasari, quoting a contemporary of Cimabue, "Cimabue of Florence was a painter who lived during the author's own time, a nobler man than anyone knew but he was as a result so haughty and proud that if someone pointed out to him any mistake or defect in his work, or if he had noted any himself ... he would immediately destroy the work, no matter how precious it might be."{{cite book|last=Vasari|first=Giorgio|title=Lives of the Artists, 1550|year=1991|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=0-19-281754-X|page=[https://archive.org/details/livesofartists0000vasa/page/13 13]|url=https://archive.org/details/livesofartists0000vasa/page/13}}

The nickname Cimabue translates as "bull-head" but also possibly as "one who crushes the views of others", from the Italian verb cimare, meaning "to top", "to shear", and "to blunt". The conclusion for the second meaning is drawn from similar commentaries on Dante, who was also known "for being contemptuous of criticism".{{Cite web|url=http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T017771?q=cimabue&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1|title=Cimabue|last=Gibbs|first=Robert|publisher=www.oxfordartonline.com|access-date=11 February 2017}}

History has long regarded Cimabue as the last of an era that was overshadowed by the Italian Renaissance. As early as 1543, Vasari wrote of Cimabue, "Cimabue was, in one sense, the principal cause of the renewal of painting," with the qualification that, "Giotto truly eclipsed Cimabue's fame just as a great light eclipses a much smaller one."

In Canto XI of his Purgatorio, Dante laments the quick loss of public interest in Cimabue in the face of Giotto's revolution in art.{{Cite book|last=Aligheri|first=Dante|title=Purgatorio|publisher=Anchor Books, Random House Inc.|year=2003|isbn=0-385-49700-8|location=New York|pages=245|translator-last=Hollander|translator-first=Jean|translator-last2=Hollander|translator-first2=Robert}} Cimabue himself does not appear in Purgatorio, but is mentioned by Oderisi, who is also repenting for his pride. The artist serves to represent the fleeting nature of fame in contrast with the Enduring God.

O vanity of human powers,

how briefly lasts the crowning green of glory,

unless an age of darkness follows!

In painting Cimabue thought he held the field

but now it's Giotto has the cry,

so that the other's fame is dimmed.

{{Cite book|last=Aligheri|first=Dante|title=Purgatorio|publisher=Anchor Books, Random House|year=2003|isbn=0-385-49700-8|location=New York|pages=236–237|translator-last=Hollander|translator-first=Jean|translator-last2=Hollander|translator-first2=Robert}}

On 27 October 2019, The Mocking of Christ, was sold for €24m (£20m; $26.6m), a price the auctioneers described as a new world record for a medieval painting. The picture had been located in the kitchen of a home in northern France, and its owner had been unaware of its value.{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50201691|title=Masterpiece found in French kitchen fetches €24m|date=27 October 2019|via=www.bbc.co.uk}}

Around a dozen works are securely attributed to Cimabue, with several less secure attributions. None are signed or dated.

• Crucifixes
• Crucifix (Cimabue, Santa Croce), c. 1265, Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence
• Crucifix (Cimabue, Arezzo), c. 1267–1271, Basilica of San Domenico, Arezzo
• Frescos c. 1277–1280 in the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, Assisi
• Nativity and Betrothal of the Virgin
• Choir, central vault, right transept
• Three surviving panels (of eight) from the Diptych of devotion, c.1280
• The Mocking of Christ, Musée du Louvre, Paris
• Virgin and Child with Two Angels, National Gallery, London
• The Flagellation of Christ, Frick Collection, New York
• Maestà or Virgin and Child Enthroned
• Maestà, c. 1280, Pisa, now Louvre
• Maestà of Santa Maria dei Servi, 1280–1285, Basilica di Santa Maria dei Servi, Bologna
• Gualino Madonna, 1280–1283, Galleria Sabauda, Turin
• ?: Madonna di Castelfiorentino, c. 1283–1284, {{ill|Museo di Santa Verdiana|it}}, Castelfiorentino
• Santa Trinita Maestà, c. 1290–1300, Santa Trinita, Florence, now Uffizi, Florence
• Mosaic ceiling at Florence Baptistery, c. 1300
• Mosaic of Christ enthroned with the Virgin and St John, Pisa Cathedral, 1301–1302

File:CrocifissoCimabue-Arezzo-Photo taken by Senet. April 20, 2010-Perspective correction, crop and blackframe with GIMP by Paolo Villa 2019.jpg|Crucifix (c. 1267–1271), San Domenico, Arezzo

File:La Vierge et l'Enfant en majesté entourés de six anges - Cimabue - Musée du Louvre Peintures INV 254 ; MR 159.jpg|Maestà (c. 1280), Louvre, Paris

File:Cimabue Diptych Overview FR.svg|Hypothetical reconstruction of the Diptych

File:Cimabue, The Virgin and Child Enthroned with Two Angels.jpg|Virgin and Child with Two Angels (c. 1280), National Gallery, London

File:Cimabue Christ Mocked.jpg|The Mocking of Christ (Cimabue) (c. 1280), sold at auction for €24m in 2019

File:Cimabue - Flagellation.jpg|The Flagellation of Christ (c. 1280), Frick Collection, New York

File:Santa Maria dei Servi, bo, interno, maestà di cimabue 01.JPG|Attributed to Cimabue, Maestà (c. 1280–1285), Santa Maria dei Servi, Bologna

File:Cimabue madonna castefliorentino.jpg|Castelfiorentino Madonna (c. 1283–1284), Museo di Santa Verdiana, Castelfiorentino

File:Cerchia di cimabue o artista senese, ultima cena di new orleans 01.jpg|The Last Supper

File:Cimabue - Madonna Enthroned with the Child, St Francis and four Angels (detail) - WGA04921.jpg|Madonna Enthroned with the Child, St Francis and four Angels (detail)

File:Cimabue 037.jpg|Maestà of Santa Trinita, (detail) Prophet

File:Cimabue - Crucifix (detail) - WGA04929.jpg|Detail of the Santa Croce Crucifix showing Apostle John

File:Cimabue 001.jpg|Detail of mosaic Christ enthroned with the Virgin and St John showing St. John the Evangelist

{{Reflist|35em}}

• {{cite book

| last = Adams

| first = Laurie Schneider

| title = Italian Renaissance Art

| publisher = Westview Press

| year = 2001

| location = Boulder, Colorado

| pages = 420

| isbn = 0-8133-3690-2

}}

• {{cite EB1911|wstitle=Cimabue, Giovanni|volume=6|first=William Michael|last=Rossetti|author-link= William Michael Rossetti |page= 366-367|short=1}}
• {{cite book

| author1 = Vasari, Giorgio

| translator = George Bull

| title = Lives of the Artists

| url = https://archive.org/details/livesofartists02vasa

| url-access = registration

| publisher = Penguin Classics

| year = 1987

| isbn = 9780140445008

}}

• {{cite book

| author = Vaughn, William

| title = Encyclopedia of Artists

| publisher = Oxford University Press

| year = 2000

| isbn = 0-19-521572-9

}}

• {{Commons-inline}}
• [http://www.art-drawing.ru/gallery/category/388-cimabue Cimabue. Pictures] [http://www.art-drawing.ru/biographies/brief-biographies/1644-cimabue and Biography]
• [http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/cimabue-santa-trinita-madonna.html Cimabue Santa Trinita Madonna (1280–1290)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141015150415/http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/cimabue-santa-trinita-madonna.html |date=15 October 2014 }}. A video discussion about the painting from smarthistory.khanacademy.org
• {{Cite NSRW|short=x|wstitle=Cimabue, Giovanni}}

{{Cimabue}}

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