In the chapel maintained by that noble family, the Peruzzi, Giotto
spread on the side walls three stories from the life of St. John the
Baptist, and as many more from that of St. John the Evangelist. The
figures are superb, magisterial in pose; the draperies grand and ample
after the classical fashion. Upon bulk and relief there is less
insistence than at Padua. Giotto has passed the experimental stage as
regards form, is less strenuous and more at his ease. Nothing is more
stately in the chapel than the presentation of the infant Baptist to his
father, who is temporarily stricken with dumbness, Figure 19. Simeon
gravely writes the name John; Elizabeth with her adoring group of
attendants carefully offers the vivacious child to his father’s gaze.
The gestures are slow, definite, determined. The group beautifully fills
the square space without crowding it. The composition, unlike the widely
spaced Paduan designs, is drawn together into a mass.
[Illustration:
FIG. 20. Giotto. Resuscitation of Drusiana by St. John.—_Peruzzi
Chapel, Santa Croce._
]
Upon the Feast of Herod with Salome modestly dancing John Ruskin[11] has
expended just eulogies in the petulant yet important little book
“Mornings in Florence.” What is notable in the scene is its general
decorum and the pathetic indecision of the weak King.
But the most accomplished design as such is the miracle of the
Resuscitation of Drusiana by St. John the Evangelist, Figure 20. Even
the inscenation before a fine Romanesque city is adequately, if very
simply, realized. The gesture of the apostle is of majestic power, the
contrast of the massive, upright, columnar forms of the elders, with the
sharply bent forms of Drusiana, her mourners and bier bearers, is
admirably invented, and the drastic portraiture of a cripple at the left
adds a tang of reality while in no wise detracting from the dignity of
the scene. We have a work in the grand style, massively conceived,
warmly felt, wrought into an elaborate and satisfying symmetry. The
Ascension of St. John has an even graver and more ample rhythm. The
Golden Age of Raphael and Titian will have little to add to this except
the minor graces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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