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Giotto and His Works in Padua

by John Ruskin

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About this book

The wall paintings of Padua's Arena Chapel give John Ruskin a way to explain how medieval pictures tell stories. Written to accompany the Arundel Society's woodcut reproductions, this study supplies background on the chapel's founder, Enrico Scrovegno, and considers Giotto's place among earlier and later painters. Ruskin makes clear that he offers an introduction to the works rather than a full account of the artist's life.

His close readings move between religious narratives and the choices that make them visible. In scenes from the Virgin Mary's childhood, he discusses simple domestic details, awkward proportions and the use of one composition to show successive events. He also notices how damage to a fresco can limit what a viewer understands.

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About the author

John Ruskin

John Ruskin (1819-1900) was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era and an influential social thinker whose ideas on art, labor, and society shaped movements from the Pre-Raphaelites to the welfare state.