A New Way of Seeing

Christ Entering Jerusalem, a comparison
(Left: 1308-11, Duccio, back of the Maestà Altar, Cathedral Museum, Sienna;
Right: 1305-06, Giotto, Fresco, Arena Chapel, Padua)

                    The two versions [of Christ Entering Jerusalem] have many elements in common, since they both ultimately derive from the same Byzantine source; but where Duccio has enriched the traditional scheme, spatially as well as in narrative detail, Giotto subjects it to a radical simplification. The action proceeds parallel to the picture plane; landscape, architecture, and figures have been reduced to the essential minimum... Yet Giotto's work has far the more powerful impact of the two; it makes us feel so close to the event that we have a sense of being participants rather than distant observers. How does the artist achieve this extraordinary effect? He does so, first of all, by having the entire scene take place in the foreground and—even more important—by presenting it in such a way that the beholder's eye-level falls within the lower half of the picture. Thus we can imagine ourselves standing on the same ground plane as these painted figures, even though we see them from well below, while Duccio makes us survey the scene from above in bird's-eye perspective. The consequences of this choice of viewpoint are truly epoch-making; choice implies conscious awareness—in this case, awareness of a relationship in space between the beholder and the picture—and Giotto may well claim to be the first to have established such a relationship...

                    Giotto's aim was not simply to transplant Gothic statuary into painting. By creating a radically new kind of picture space, he had also sharpened his awareness of the picture surface. When we look at a work by Duccio (or his ancient and medieval predecessors) we tend to do so in installments, as it were; our glance travels from detail to detail at a leisurely pace until we have surveyed the entire area. Giotto, on the contrary, invites us to see the whole at one glance. His large, simple forms, the strong grouping of his figures the limited depth of his “stage,” all these factors help to endow his scenes with an inner coherence such as we have never found before...

H.W. Janson
“Gothic Art”
in History of Art