History Of Art
Italian painters from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries have definitely been inclined to adopt Byzantine styles when painting. Even though having Byzantine features involved in their paintings meant that they would have to abandon new and daring concepts which added a touch of reality, they still made good use of traditional elements coming from the eastern part of the Roman Empire. Duccio di Boninsegna and Giotto di Bondone have been two of the Italian painters acknowledged as having had a major influence on Italian painting. The two painters have each gone at painting the Christ entering Jerusalem scene, and, even with the fact that they had been contemporaries (and had presumably been influenced by similar events throughout their lives), their paintings differ greatly.
Duccio di Boninsegna has certainly managed to master the art of painting during his life, and, he proved to be successful in spite of his reluctance to adopt new concepts in his works. On the contrary, Giotto di Bondone had been a revolutionary, as he seemed to be determined to desert long-standing concepts in favor of newer, and more evolved ones.
Byzantine paintings have a general tendency to represent scenes from a two-dimensional perspective, and, most probably, in order to compensate with the lack of spatial depth, they use a greater number of details. In Giotto's Christ Entering Jerusalem, viewers feel as if they are part of the painting, with the painter's desire to involve three-dimensionality into his painting being obvious. Also, the painter simplified the painting by abandoning complexity and focusing on the essential. Duccio, on the other hand, has involved much more details in his portrayal of Christ Entering Jerusalem. Regardless of the attention paid by Duccio to details, his painting lacks realism, viewers being able to observe that the figures in it appear to be floating.
