Adoration of the magi - Giotto di Bondone, 1305–06

Pintor de quadros religiosos e com extrema aptidao para expressar os sentimentos das pessoas em seu quadro.

Famous panels in the series include the Adoration of the Magi, in which a comet-like Star of Bethlehem streaks across the sky, and the Flight from Egypt, in which Giotto broke many traditions in the depiction of the scene. The scenes from the Passion were much admired by artists of the Renaissance for their concentrated emotional and dramatic force, especially the Lamentation of Christ, and studies of the sequence by Michelangelo exist.

The feature which more than any other sets Giotto's work apart from that of his contemporaries is his depiction of the human face and of human emotion in both expression and gesture. When the disgraced Joachim returns sadly to the hillside, the two young shepherds look sideways at each other. The soldier who drags a baby from its screaming mother does so with his head hunched into his shoulders and a look of shame on his face. The people on the road to Egypt gossip about Mary and Joseph as they go.

Of Giotto's realism, the 19th century English critic John Ruskin said "He painted the Madonna and St. Joseph and the Christ, yes, by all means ... but essentially Mamma, Papa and Baby."^[5]