Favourite Paintings: 'The Death of St Francis' by Giotto

One of my favourite paintings isn't really a painting at all, it's a fresco cycle by Giotto in the Bardi Chapel in the church of Santa Croce in Florence. The frescoes are about the life of St Francis and I've chosen the scene showing the death of the friar who soon afterwards became a saint.

I still remember my excitement at seeing a real Giotto chapel for the first time, exclaiming 'He invented art', when I realised what I was looking at and wanted to drink it all in with my eyes. Of course, art has been around for millennia before Giotto but he and a few other masters were pivotal in modernising art in the late middle ages that led to the Renaissance and the great flourishing of art one hundred years later.

Look at the friars gathered around the deathbed of their leader, the man they'd given up everything to follow, just like the Apostles gave up everything to follow their Lord. They were real men who knew the real Francis, not the legendary saint, faults and all. They don't look saintly and ethereal do they? They were real men, you and me, who happened to live in extraordinary times. They react differently, some seeming to be telling Francis to hold on a bit longer, some in tears, some in shock, just as you do when someone dies. This was part of Giotto's genius, his attempts at storytelling in a way that had never been done before, to show real people showing real emotion. It's an astonishing display of the imagination and the skills of the master.

The strange oblong of empty space in the centre of the fresco is the result of some stupid rich person wanting to be tried in that chapel so they hollowed out part of the wall to place his coffin in. Luckily they retained the original fresco so it could be replaced at a later date. Just underneath the fresco is a line that runs round the entire chapel showing the highest point the water reached when the Arno overflowed its banks in 1966 and flooded Florence. I wonder what intervention prevented it reaching these amazing frescoes?

When you've drunk in as much as you can of the chapel, walk back maybe 20-30 yards and look up at the top of the chapel and, on the walls of the church you'll see another fresco by Giotto, this time a very big painting of St Francis receiving the stigmata. The seraph is flying overhead and beams of light transfer the stigmata of Christ to St Francis. You can't get close enough to see the detail since it's so high up on the walls but there's a similar painting on a panel in the Louvre in Paris that you can get close to.

Bronzino

Agnolo Bronzino (or Agnolo di Cosimo) was a Florentine painter in the 1500s, a painter I've never really paid much attention to and have glanced at his paintings in galleries (such as the famous 'Allegory with Venus and Cupid' in the National Gallery). I've never really 'looked' at his paintings - they're all very professional with clear, smooth surfaces, but not really anything out of the ordinary, at least to my eyes (although this Allegory is rather strange in composition).

He was clearly a very good painter but, then again. there have been lots of very good painters. It usually takes that something extra to make me actually 'notice' a painter and start looking at their works in a different light. That's what happened with Bronzino.

I first 'noticed' Bronzino at the very good 'Charles I' exhibition at the Royal Academy earlier this year which featured loads of works from his collection. Including a painting by Bronzino, 'Portrait of a Woman in Green'. When I saw this painting form across the room I had to take a closer look. It's a portrait of a woman, a real life, living and breathing woman, in amazing detail that brings her to life - give her modern day clothes to wear and you could see her on a bus any day of the week. Looking at that sumptuous gown and I put it in the category of 'show off' paintings with Bronzino saying 'look what I can do so effortlessly, commission me and I'll do the same for you'.  I went back a couple of times to see that painting before leaving the exhibition. Bronzino was now on my radar.

A few months later, I went to Florence, not looking for Bronzinos but I couldn't help but find them in his home town.

The first painting I found was at the marvellous basilica of Santa Croce, a very large painting of 'The Descent of Christ into Limbo'. This was, apparently, one of the first acts of the risen Christ, to save the 'good' souls of people from their eternity in Limbo, starting with his forefather, Adam. We see an athletic Christ helping the old man out of the morass of bodies consigned to Limbo, surrounded by lots of other very individual-looking people - there's no homogenisation here. I think the thing that first attracted me to the painting was the skin tone - I'd recently finished a course in portrait painting and I'd started looking at paintings and wondering how they'd achieved different colours, wondering what paints had been mixed to arrive at those tones.

In particular, there's the two slightly elongated women in the front of the scene at bottom right, with one looking out at the viewer. I've got no idea who they're meant to be but they do pull the eye away from Christ. The skill that's gone into this painting is quite incredible.

A day or two later I went to the Uffizi to look at paintings and, in a small corridor, I found a series of paintings that Bronzino had completed of people in the Medici family.

The 'Portrait of Eleanor of Toledo and her Son' is gorgeous with that elaborate dress, the stately, almost stiff, pose, with her arm around her son. She looks impassive, an almost total lack of emotion in her face but it's an incredible rendering of a young woman at the peak of her almost cold beauty. Apparently she was aged 22 when this painting was made and that was one of her favourite dresses.

It's the detail of the face that kept me looking at this painting, the almost photographic realism that brings it to life.  What was she thinking while she sat there, probably wanting to be off doing something else while he son fidgets at her side. I think the frame is a bit too ornate and detracts form the beauty of the painting.

Another incredible portrait is that of Bia de Medici. The painting was commissioned after the child had died and is based on her death mask. It's a lovely little painting and, as ever, it's the details that add to the whole, like the hints of movement in her hands, almost as if she's fidgeting on the chair to get comfortable as she sits still for the painting, bringing her back to life. There's little emotion in the face but it's still a warm and welcoming portrait.

The rather impassive, if not cold, nature of his portrait faces seems to be a trademark of his particular style but that doesn't affect their beauty or the skill exhibited. You can't really look into the soul of his sitters, their faces are a mask which the real person hides behind. Does that matter? I don't think so.

There are a few paintings by Bronzino at the National Gallery and a painting attributed to his studio in the Wallace Collection so he's not under-represented in London. I'll certainly keep my eyes peeled for more when I'm wandering around galleries.

Giotto at Santa Croce, Florence

Santa Croce is one of the larger church complexes in Florence. It's also one of the most important art complexes with works still in place after 500 years. The first time I went there I got terribly excited by seeing a Giotto fresco cycle for the first time and exclaiming out loud that 'he invented art!'. Well, he did, sort of.

The church is at one end of a large square that hosts a market some days of the week. At other times it's empty and you're greeted by a rather severe statue of Dante surrounded by four lions. His disdainful countenance which is based on is death mask looks down on you and asks whether you are worthy to enter the church. I am actually, Mr Dante. So you pay your due and go in near the main altar which is very splendid but the main sight is to the right of the altar. A Giotto chapel!

The chapel is dedicated to St Francis and his followers and Giotto depicts scenes from his life and his death. It's really quite wonderful to see a wall - several walls - covered in paintings by Giotto, some so high up you can' really see the detail at all but it's all there. Giotto tried to bring a new naturalism into his art, to show people as they really were in the presence of God and his Son, his saints and holy men and women. That's what we see in this chapel, Giotto trying to bring a new naturalism to religious art.

That's what we see in the scene that depicts the deathbed of St Francis, his monks shocked and appalled at his death, hardly believing that such a holy man can have died. And Giotto tries to capture the various expressions that might happen at such a pivotal moment. How would you react to the most holy man you've ever met leaving you to join your Lord?

Some of the monks hold up their hands in shock and disbelief, some bend to kiss his hand for the last time while others try to commiserate with them. 'How is this possible?' some are muttering while others comfort themselves by recognising that their Lord has called him to His side. So many emotions in one panel of a fresco. Emotions not seen before Giotto interpreted the holy tales and painted them in this chapel. That is the power of a great artist, to make us see something we can't possibly have seen ourselves but he shows it to us. He tries to make us part of the scene by depicting real people. And Giotto was the first, the trailblazer who escaped from the previous artistic tradition and began a new journey. How wonderful.

Here are some more photos of that chapel, of that story that Giotto told for the first time. Look and marvel. And go to Santa Croce if you can - don't take my word for it.

Where Do Artists Rest?

Have you ever wondered where your favourite artists - writes, painters, sculptors, musicians and more - are laid to rest when they leave us to create elsewhere? I've never really thought about it before. We have Poet's Corner as a place to lay some of our writers in Westminster Abbey but that's a drop in the ocean of past creative people who made a significant contribution to all our lives whether we realise it or not. With the majority of artists we know their names and works, probably very little about their lives and very little about their deaths. With a minority, we know a lot.

On my recent sojourn to Florence I found the resting places of two great artists. The church of Santa Croce holds many treasures and is the resting place of many prominent Italians over the years. It holds the tombs of Galileo, Machiavelli and Rossini to name but a few. It also holds the ornate tomb of Michelangelo Buonarroti.

Michelangelo's is the largest and most ornate tomb in the church, a great big marker in marble and paint that shouts out to the world that here lies an important person waiting for his Lord to raise him up into the glory he depicted in his art. It was nice, in a way. to stand there watching group after group of tourists troupe to the tomb, stand for a few minutes listening to their guide or read their guidebooks and then move on. Everyone has heard of Michelangelo and it's nice that, for a few moments, he's uppermost in people's thoughts.

Not all artists are buried in the great places of the world on the tourist trails. Some rest in smaller, out of the way churches that most visitors don't have time to see. One of the big draws at the Uffizi Gallery is Alessandro Botticelli and the room that temporarily houses some of his works was packed out with tourist groups when I visited the other day. I could hardly move for the crowds and certainly couldn't see much so I moved on to less crowded rooms. Botticelli's resting place is far less busy and far more peaceful. He lies in the church of Ognissanti (All Saints) a mile or so from Santa Croce. His tomb is marked by a round  marble marker on the floor of a small side chapel and it was nice to see that someone had left some flowers for him.

It was quite odd to see a little cardboard box with the name 'Botticelli' written in capital letters in blue marker pen on the front sitting beside the marker for his tomb. Inside were lots of bits of paper left by visitors with messages to Botticelli, wishes or hopes, in all languages. The topmost was from someone wanting to be a footballer when he grows up. I don't really understand this since Botticelli isn't a saint but people clearly think he has the power to intervene in their fates. That is a strange but touching tribute to a painter. His art has touched people.