Scrovegni Chapel Frescoes Analysis
- Date of Creation:
- circa 1305
- Alternative Names:
- Arena Chapel
- Art Movement:
- Created by:
- Current Location:
- Padua, Italy
Di Bondone's Scrovegni Chapel is without question his masterwork, produced mid-career to instant acclaim and popularity. In-keeping with his penchant for telling a narrative with pictures, the artist takes the viewer on a journey through time with Christian figures Mary and Jesus Christ.
The Scrovegni Chapel is decorated with over thirty different scenes from the lives of Mary and Jesus, the miracles that Jesus performed, the Virtues and Vices, and the Last Judgment. In each scene it is apparent that di Bondone took great care in arranging his figures, geographic forms, and architecture in order to draw the viewer's attention to the main points while maintaining a sense of cohesion throughout the scene.
In Slaughter of the Innocents, a scene depicting the infanticide ordered by King Herod of Judea, this technique can clearly be seen.
The viewer's attention is immediately focused on the center of the scene, where a man draws back a spear of sorts and prepares to pierce a child clinging to its mother.
From the man's drawn-back arm, the attention is refocused on the man behind him, carrying out another murder as the child hangs limply from the man's grasp. As the viewer's gaze moves up the painting, a passive onlooker (King Herod?) watches from a balcony above the melee.
Corpses of children are piled in a heap at the bottom of the painting. The closeness of the buildings to each other and the density of the crowd, most with expressions of horror, disgust or bloodthirstiness, serves to create the impression of chaos and fear. The vibrant colors, with a healthy sprinkling of red throughout, are reminiscent of strong emotion and, of course, blood.
Birth of Jesus is another fresco in the Scrovegni Chapel in which careful composition figures prominently. Starting at the left, as most viewers do, the tall head of a camel is seen, the highest point of the painting aside from the shelter.
Moving right from the camel, the other figures go from standing to kneeling in a naturally sloping diagonal line, finally bringing the viewer's attention to the baby Jesus. The shelter is large and open, inviting the eye to explore its various nooks and crannies. An observant viewer will notice, just above the roof, a comet or shooting star. This, while possibly the fabled Star of Bethlehem, is believed by many to be di Bondone's rendering of Halley's Comet.
As to the overall composition of the Scrovegni Chapel, di Bondone planned it just as carefully, juxtaposing the lives of Mary and Jesus in such a way as to make the scenes, whether read horizontally or vertically, appear to foreshadow each other. His emphasis on cohesion, both within each scene and as a whole, make the Scrovegni Chapel even more remarkable.
The Scrovegni Chapel would probably not be the beautiful masterpiece it is without di Bondone's use of bold, vibrant color throughout. Di Bondone believed that art should reflect real life, and he chose to give people's clothing and hair authentic colors instead of the traditional flat, drab gray. He even painted saints, angels, and Christ in colorful garb, eschewing the conventional 'heavenly' colors like gold and bronze.
Di Bondone also used color to communicate emotion. Gone are the uniform gold skies and silver outlines; instead, di Bondone opted for blue skies, green landscapes, dark, thunderous-looking clouds, browning foliage - anything that would communication what his characters were feeling.
A prime example of this came in the form of Entry into Jerusalem from the life of Jesus section of Scrovegni. The cheerful blue skies are a backdrop for the healthy-looking green flora, while pure-white angels dance in the air.
The whiteness of the castle in the background suggests a bright future for Christ as he enters Jerusalem. The townspeople welcoming him are garbed in light shades of green, red, purple and yellow, suggesting goodness and genuine welcome. The color in this fresco indicates, above all, a happy occasion.
The Wedding at Cana fresco needs no explanation. It is an explosion of cheerful color and light, from the walls to the furnishing and people's clothing. This painting, which depicts Christ's miracle of turning water into wine, was a remarkable, joyful setting. The bright colors serve to reinforce how the revelers must have been feeling on this day.
Di Bondone's commitment to colorful scenes set him apart from his contemporaries in many ways, but his style would continue to evolve until his death, leaving work unfinished and steps untaken. Fortunately, however, his peers quickly adopted his use of color and his technique lived on.
Di Bondone's use of both illumination and shade in his paintings was a big step away from the traditional Medieval style. In line with his dedication to naturalism, di Bondone employed light and shade to further enhance the realness of his subjects; shadows, sunlight and moonlight all play a role in his paintings to underline the curve, bulk and overall shape of the human body. They make clothes and flesh hang more realistically from the body, indicate good people and evil ones and also clarify the painting's mood.
This method is particularly noticeable in Judas' Betrayal of Christ. While the robes of the men are brightly colored, there is no other light in the painting. The sky is a dark, ominous midnight blue, and the skulking, sinister, hooved black creature standing behind Judas as he betrays Christ contributes immensely to the painting's overall mood of darkness. Even the men's faces are dark, drawn, and unsmiling, as if burdened by something terrible.
The Scrovegni Chapel depicts, primarily, the lives of Mary and Jesus, along with several scenes from the lives of noted Saints. Life, di Bondone acknowledged, is not a monotonous affair, and his work is evidence of that. Splashed with color and populated by subjects in the throes of every conceivable emotion, the Scrovegni Chapel frescoes are as varied in tone as they are uniform in their artistic genius.
Mary and Jesus did not have particularly happy lives, but their struggles were ennobled by their courage and borne with a small peppering of joyful times throughout. Di Bondone knew exactly how to communicate joy, grief, ire, evil, good, and everything in between by incorporating the right amount of space, light and color. It is easy to discern the tone of every fresco in the Scrovegni Chapel; di Bondone does not rely on the viewer's knowledge of Christian lore to help him tell the story.
Lamentation is probably the most famous fresco in the Scrovegni Chapel and also one of the most powerful and moving. It portrays a dead Christ in the arms of Mary, surrounded by his followers and friends. Their heads hang down in sorrow, their mouths are twisted in despair. Angels fly about distractedly overhead and weep. The darkness of the sky is further evidence of the figurative darkness of that day. The tone is overwhelmingly grim and very affecting.
Last Judgment (detail)
Despite Di Bondone's revolutionary approach to painting, in many ways he remained professionally stagnant during his life. He found his niche early on and stayed with it until the end of his days. This is especially true of his brush strokes. Di Bondone used thick, sweeping, dramatic brush strokes almost exclusively as a matter of form because he painted frescoes.
He applied color thickly to his paintings to create a bold, striking effect of drama and real life. He began using this technique as soon as he began painting and continued it throughout his career. Much of di Bondone's work has been lost over time, but nothing that remains features delicate, fine brush strokes.
The painting to the right is evidence of his preference for thicker brush strokes. The robes of the subjects at the bottom are clad in heavy, colorful clothing. Heads throughout the painting feature thick, dark brown masses of hair, while the angels are haloed with broad, gold circles of light.