Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel

Date: 1305-1306

Medium: Fresco

Location: Padua, Italy

Giotto is called the Father of Italian painting. He broke with the Byzantine tradition and revived Italian art after a long decline due to invasions and plagues. Nature was his teacher and he was the first to portray figures with a sense of weight and volume.

His masterpiece is a series of frescoes in the Arena Chapel in Padua, northern Italy, not far from Venice.
He was called to Padua in 1305 by Enrico Scrovegni, from a family of money lenders, to decorate a chapel not far from an old Roman amphitheatre; thus the name Arena Chapel.

Arena Chapel (Interior View Looking toward the Altar)

The frescoes in the Arena Chapel are considered the greatest of Giotto's works and also one of the major turning points in the history of European painting. By viewing the scenes in the chapel we can better understand composition in art and see what a great story teller and designer this artist was.

Giotto was about 40 years old when he began work on the chapel.His patron, Enrico Scrovegni, had acquired the ruins of the old Roman arena at Padua as a site for his palace and adjoining chapel. The date of the frescoes is not absolutely certain but the date of 1305-1306 is probably the most acceptable.

The chapel is small and lit by six windows on the right wall. Giotto arranged the scenes on the walls in three tiers. On the very bottom are wide mock marble bands with the Seven Virtues and the Seven Vices.

The ceiling is painted with blue and gold stars to represent Heaven. This was how the Sistine Chapel ceiling appeared before Michelangelo painted it. The medallions have portraits of prophets.

Arena Chapel (View of the Chapel looking toward the Entrance)

On the wall in back of the facade Giotto painted a large fresco of the Last Judgment.

Giotto made use of the medieval tradition of typology. In art history this is the study of symbolic types of representation especially of the Old Testament events of the Bible as they prefigure those of the New Testament.

The chapel is a rectangular, barrel-vaulted hall and has 38 framed pictures arranged on three levels. The The south wall is pierced by six narrow windows but the north wall is a totally flat surface.

This is one of the most powerful renderings of Christian Redemption ever painted.

Arena Chapel (Interior View)

Giotto divided the side walls into three levels to fresco on them the:

1. Life of Mary
2. Life of Christ and
3. Passion of Christ.

The individual panels are framed with decorative borders which have delicate tracery and they are separated with smaller scenes from the Old Testament that prefigure the events in the New Testament.

The theme of the chapel is the Redemption of man. The Day of Judgment on the inside wall of the facade ends the history of Mankind.

Here is a sample of how the scenes are seen on the walls of the chapel.

Expulsion of Joachim from the Temple

The narrative begins with six scenes of Joachim and Anna, the parents of Mary. They were an old couple who had never been able to have children. This scene shows Joachim being expelled from the temple because of his childlessness.

The diagonal direction of the architecture reinforces the thrust of the expulsion. The gaze of the saint is anguished as can be seen in his forehead and by the way he clasps the sacrificial lamb. Giotto did not understand perspective and the halos will appear as plates attached to the heads of the figures but notice how he gives weight and mass plus emotion to the figures.

Joachim with the Shepherds

The figures in the Chapel are half life size and are sculpturesque in treatment. They read like a cinema. Each scene is based on an incident from a continuous drama and on the simple human relationships of the figures. There is plot and subplot but never excess.

Notice how heavy the figures seem and how much weight they have. This was unprecedented in Italian art.

In this scene Joachim takes refuge with the shepherds. He is humiliated and looks down and stands before two shepherds who glance at each other wondering whether to accept him. Even the dog, a symbol of fidelity, seems nervous. The rock in the background accentuates and frames the figures. Giotto's marvelous mountains advance and recede to form niches for his figures. They are architectural backgrounds that don't exist in their own right but they become volumes and masses for Giotto's extension of human nature. The spacial proportions of Giotto are more psychological than actually correct. The figures are large against their mountain backgrounds.

The Sacrifice of Joachim

Here we see Joachim making a sacrifice. In the composition he is framed by a figure on both sides. Our eye is led up in the direction Joachim is looking and in the sky we can see the hand of God reaching down. The drama of this scene leads us to the next.

The Dream of Joachim

The composition here is brilliant. We see Joachim, in the shape of an equilateral triangle in the lower right. Above him a small hut and above the hut a large rock. This gives visual weight to this side of the fresco. On the other side two shepherds enter the composition and above them is an angel diagonally flying toward Joachim to announce that Anna is pregnant with child. The weight in mathematical terms for the composition would be a 3:3 ratio. There is no question that Joachim is the focal point in the composition.

The Annunciation to St. Anne

Anna is visited by an angel in her home in Jerusalem and told that she will conceive a child. A servant stands on the back porch. Notice here how the composition is arranged. Anna, the most important figure is in the center. The direction of the angel points to Anna. Also the hand of the servant makes a line toward Anna. The architecture is not in perspective because Giotto did not have this technique at his command. It was not discovered until the time of the Renaissance. Giotto has one scale for the figures and another for the surroundings. The house is like a stage set. The depth of the space is brought out by the foreshortening of the angel and the more brightly lit architectural frame against the darker recesses of the interior. This is a technique that Giotto always followed.

The Meeting at the Gate

Here Joachim and Anna greet each other with the good news. Some women enter through a gate and a figure in black turns toward them. At the extreme left we see a figure enter the composition as if to frame it. The real focal point is in the two figures of Joachim and Anna. Joachim's arm makes a circle with the intertwined halos.

This scene is intimate and touching. The caress of Anna's hand which buries itself in the beard and hair of the Joachim has an infinite tenderness.