Italian Renaissance Artists - Giotto Bondone

Posted on April 30, 2008 - Filed Under Arts and Entertainment

More than six hundred years ago, in 1276, a child was born in Italy in a small village called Vespignano, close by the city of Florence. The baby’s father was called Bondone, and though he worked long, hard hours in the countryside, he was never able to bring much money back to the family table. He called his little son Giotto.

Life was tough and hard in the village of Vespignano, and Giotto soon grew into a strong, hardy boy. He was no stranger to hunger and cold. The hills surrounding the village were grey and bare, relieved only by the silver glint of olive-trees in the sunlight, or green corn shoots in early spring. In summer, the barren hillside offered little protection from the blazing sun, high in the sky, and the grass which grew among the grey rocks was often burnt and brown. The sheep of the village were turned out onto the hills to find what food they could, tended and watched over by one of the village boys.

When he was ten, Giotto was sent by his father to look after the sheep on the hillside. In those days there were no schools or lessons for country boys, and Giotto spent many happy days, in sunshine and rain, following the sheep wherever they could find enough grass to feed on. But Giotto was sometimes not as attentive as he should have been - sometimes he forgot all about the sheep, and had to search to gather them all together again. There was one thing he loved doing more than anything else: drawing pictures. He drew pictures of everything he saw, with such concentration that he forgot everything else around him.

Out there, on the barren hillside, under the blue sky, his keen eye fashioned pictures in his mind of the white clouds changing from one form to another. With time he came to know the exact shape of every flower, and how it grew, he noticed the patterns made by the olive trees’ silvery leaves against the deep blue sky, he observed how the sheep looked as they lay down in the shadow of a rock, or stooped down to munch at the grass.

Nothing escaped the young Giotto’s keen, watchful eye. Drawing pictures was no easy matter for him - he had no pencils or paper, and had probably never seen a picture in his life. But that didn’t matter to him. He would sharpen a piece of stone, find the smoothest rock surface he could, and etch onto it all the wonderful things he saw. The flowers, birds, olive trees, sheep. Above all else he drew sheep - they were his friends and companions, and he could draw them in a thousand different ways.

Find out how Giotto’s genius was discovered by chance by the great artist Cimabue: Giotto Bondone. Give your child a gift for life - awaken their interest in art: lives of the great Italian artists, told for children: Renaissance Artists.

Tags: art, florence, giotto, renaissance

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