Lamentation (The Mourning of Christ) by Giotto

Lamentation (The Mourning of Christ) by Giotto

Grief, painted for the first time

A bare hillside runs down from the right, and everyone's attention runs down with it to the dead Christ at the bottom left, held in his mother's arms. Two women with their backs to us — Giotto's invention, and a shock in 1305 — block our view and make us look over their shoulders. John throws his arms back. Above, ten angels tear through the blue sky, wailing, tearing their faces, and one of them has its hands over its eyes.

This is the panel people go to Padua to see. Before it, grief in painting was a gesture; after it, it was a feeling.

The Scrovegni Chapel

Enrico Scrovegni built the chapel in atonement for his father's usury, and Giotto painted every wall of it with the lives of the Virgin and of Christ around 1305. It is the most complete work of the artist who began the Renaissance.

About this print

Made from a high-quality reproduction of the fresco panel, 10,240 pixels wide, including its painted border.

Sources: Cappella degli Scrovegni, Padua · Wikidata Q2067212 · Wikimedia Commons