File:Giotto (1905) (14776093232).jpg

Identifier: giotto00dese (find matches)
Title: Giotto
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors: De Selincourt, Basil, 1876-
Subjects: Giotto, 1266?-1337
Publisher: London : Duckworth and Co. New York, C. Scribner's Sons
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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AtAssisi, half its bulk rests lightly on the left hand of oneof the boys, and so little disconcerts him that he turnsround with an easy grace to watch the miracle. Theother boy—a blackamoor—offers no real help, nor ishis position one which would give him the smallest pur-chase, even if he wished to offer it. His black handsand face make a curious contrast to the whiteness of thestone and of the grave clothes; he serves no other pur-pose. To introduce this episode at all was unnecessary:the spirit which prompted it was clearly the realisticspirit: is it likely, therefore, that the earlier treatmentwill be the treatment in which the realities of the actionare neglected ? Again, the action of the man with handsthrown back, second from Lazarus on the left, has, likeall else in the fresco at Assisi, its counterpart at Padua.But there, though given to a figure almost hidden, it isstartling in its obvious natural force: decorous andsubdued at Assisi, it is not directly representative of
Text Appearing After Image:
>5i 2 ^ o CO •^ ^^ C/2 DPi< ^ cn < ^ THE ARENA CHAPEL AT PADUA 131 any state of mind. The same contrast appears through-out : the version at Assisi, far from being the intenser ofthe two, represents in every particular a mollificationof familiar ideas. A figure in Giottos backgroundboldly testifies to the truth of Marthas warning that by this time he stinketh; the artist at Assisi willnot leave the idea, but he appears to treat it withregret. As to the central motive of the picture, Icannot feel, as Mr. Fry does, that the version at Assisiis greater in its intensity of emotion, its concentrationof spiritual energy. He remarks on the rigid back,the intent gaze of Christ, the nervous power expressedin the action of the left hand. I cannot myself feelthis rigidity, and the face seems to me to have a vacantair, very weak about the mouth, and unredeemed by anypower of expression in the eye; nor do eye and handgive the impression that they act in concert. Lazaru

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