Giotto di Bondone
~1267-1337 · Italian (Florence) · Proto-Renaissance
Known for: Father of Western painting who broke from flat Byzantine style to create three-dimensional, emotionally alive figures
Giotto transformed European art. Before him, paintings were flat, stylized, Byzantine. After him, figures had weight, space, and human emotion. His Scrovegni Chapel frescoes in Padua are one of the turning points in Western civilization.
According to legend, he was a shepherd boy discovered by Cimabue. He was witty, practical, wealthy, and reportedly ugly but charismatic. Dante praised him in the Divine Comedy.
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