Giovanni CimabueGiovanni Cimabue, who is known as the "Father of Modern Painting", was the first artist whose work is credited with decided breaking away from the Byzantine style. His figures, while retaining many of the characteristics of the art of the Ancient World, are natural and human, his faces are not blank, but expressive, and his pictures portray a lifelike representation of his subjects. He painted people and things as they appeared in the every day life of the community in which he lived and worked. This great painter was born about the middle of the thirteenth century, and was a member of a wealthy and prominent Florentine family. His talent for painting was developed under the instructions of Byzantine artists and his works are considered the link which connects the ancient and modern schools of painting, for while retaining some features of the Byzantine period, the natural attitude and countenances of the figures in his pictures mark his works as distinctly modern. His greatest painting was that of his Madonna and Child. This picture is of colossal proportions and was greatly admired by the people of Florence. In fact, they were so interested in its production, that when it was completed, the principal citizens of the city visited Cimabue's studio to view it. The picture was then carried to the church of St. Maria Novella in a procession made up of all the principal inhabitants of Florence. It was truly a day of rejoicing for the Florentines, and their expressions of pleasure and gladness were accompanied by the blowing of trumpets and the beating of drums. Enthroned Madonna and Child, 1280
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