Pietro Lorenzetti and Cimabue were both famous Italian painters. Lorenzetti was actively involved in painting from 1306 to 1345 while Cimabue had a successful career from 1260 to 1300 (Kleiner, 2000). Though the artworks of both maestros adorn ancient churches in Italy and beyond in almost equal measure, their styles and techniques differed in more than one way.
Lorenzetti is credited with introducing naturalism into Sienese Art. He mostly painted three-dimensional art spatial arrangements (Adams, 2001). His paintings include the Deposition from the Cross, Crucifixion and the Entombment among others in churches in Siena, Assisi and Arenzo. Cimabue is also credited with more life-like paintings and breaking away from the Italo-Byzantine style (Kleiner, 2000). His paintings depicting a Madonna dethroned contrast the one done by Lorenzetti by appearing relatively flat and two-dimensional.
Cimabue depicted more freedom in the style he rendered to his figures and pieces. His artwork “Madonna Enthroned” is an example of his unique style and technique which was less stylized and more natural. According to Adams, (2001) Cimabue understood more on how to represent the human form and cloth coverings. Moreover, he used shadows and light in his paintings to enhance the dimensional quality of his figures. Lorenzetti’s work contained great decorative details and plasticity of figures (Kleiner, 2000). His painting of a “Madonna and Child” attests to this. Moreover, his painting “Birth of Virgin” in 1342 utilized exquisite decorative details which brought about nonhierarchical, humanizing tendencies.
Lorenzetti did most of his art in tempera. He used tooled gold on wooden panel on which he later applied tempera. Cimabue on the other hand preferred frescoing-creation of murals on wet plasters using water colors (Adams, 2001). Examples of works frescoed by Cimabue include the Four angel, a Madonna with child enthroned and St. Francis.
References
Adams, L. (2001). Italian Renaissance Art. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.
Kleiner, F.S. (2011). Gardner 's Art through the Ages: A global history, volume 1, 13th Ed,
Wadsworth Publishing.
