Here's a paper I wrote back in my art history days (2010). Hope it's enlightening. -Manda
Visions
of Hell
Through
the Eyes of Giotto and Michelangelo:
A
Comparison of the depictions of Hell in Giotto’s Arena Chapel
fresco
and
Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel Fresco
By:
Amanda
Walczesky
5/1/10
The
visual representation of the Last Judgment is a tradition that dates
back to as early as the sixth century. Calling on written sources as
varied as classical works such as the Aeneid
and
the
Odyssey, the
New Testament and medieval accounts of visions of hell, artists
amassed a set of motifs by which they depicted the condemning of
souls to hell.1
This collection of iconography survived for centuries and was well
known to both Giotto and Michelangelo in their respective times. For
this essay I intend to compare the portions of these artists’
frescoes that deal specifically with Hell using primarily the
connections found in the works to the Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s
allegory The
Inferno and
actual visual comparison of the two frescoes. I intend to show that
both Giotto’s and Michelangelo’s differing relationships to Dante
affected the meaning of their works and also that Michelangelo,
working over two centuries after Giotto, was influenced by the former
master in a way that adds a deeper meaning to his own work in the
Sistine Chapel.
A
brief background of the two works is needed in order to understand
the significance of certain visual aspects of the frescoes according
to the motifs found within the scenes. Giotto completed his series of
frescoes in the Arena Chapel in Padua sometime during 1306.2
Commissioned by the wealthy, yet not so well-liked, Enrico Scrovegni,
Giotto created a cycle of frescoes dedicated to the theme of
salvation and redemption upon the walls of the chapel dedicated to
the Virgin Mary. This theme would have been appropriate for one such
as Enrico, as he was the son of the infamous usurer Reginaldo
Scrovegni, whom Dante includes in The
Inferno
placing him next to two other men from wealthy Florentine families.3
Perhaps he felt the need to atone for his father’s sins and through
the construction of a church, decorated with such imagery, he could
achieve some redemption. If one identifies the central female figure
as the Virgin Mary, then Giotto’s depiction of Enrico presenting
the completed church to her indicates that Scrovegni intended for the
entire chapel to be part of his, and his family’s, salvation. It
should be noted that many scholars agree that Enrico Scrovegni was
not the only patron responsible for the building and decorating of
the Arena Chapel. A semi-religious military order called the
Cavalieri Gaudenti of which Enrico himself was a member, seems to
have had a significant hand in the construction of this chapel.
According to Robert H. Rough in his article on the subject, “The
ideals of the Cavalieri – the devotion to the Virgin and the
suppression of usury – . . . are interrelated motifs that can be
seen in the Arena Chapel’s paintings.”4
The overwhelming focus on this sin of usury, or the charging of
interest on loans, seems to indicate the hand of both patrons and
also accounts for the connection to Dante.
When
Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Paul III, to create a Last
Judgment as the altarpiece for the Sistine Chapel and which was
finished in 1541, it had been over two hundred years since Giotto had
created his work in the Arena Chapel. There is no doubt that
Michelangelo would have been familiar with the cycle of frescoes, as
famous as Giotto was it was a certainty that Michelangelo would know
the master’s work. However familiar Michelangelo may have been with
Giotto, it is evident that he merely admired the master and by no
means felt the need to copy his style or content, for the Sistine
Chapel Last
Judgment
was a radical departure aesthetically from any previous image of its
kind. Though visually different, much of the same traditional themes
hold true, yet Michelangelo draws on some interesting sources for his
conveyance of these themes, Dante being the source that I intend to
discuss.
To
begin a comparison of the visual differences between Giotto’s and
Michelangelo’s Last Judgments, it is only fitting to start with the
older work. Giotto’s Last
Judgment
contains a Hell that is much more traditional in appearance and
construction than Michelangelo’s version. The viewer is presented
with a plethora of demons, sinners, fire and torment, all of which
are situated around the grotesque figure of Satan himself. Giotto
uses his artistic license to elaborate on the various methods in
which the demons inflict their tortures, often being quite creative.
It was expected from artists, traditionally, to use their
imaginations in this portion of a Last Judgment and though Giotto
seems to be following prescribed descriptions of punishments for
sins, his legendary wit is evident. However the hand of imagination
is even more obvious in Michelangelo’s work if one considers
nothing but the break from traditional representations of Hell.5
Michelangelo’s
fresco is a departure from any of its predecessors, not only in what
is depicted but how the scene is supposed to be interpreted by the
viewer. It is obvious by first examination that only the entrance to
Hell is depicted, this evidenced by the presence of Charon and Minos
who are the ferryman and the gatekeeper of Hell, respectively. This
may seem to prohibit any in-depth comparison between Giotto’s and
Michelangelo’s works, however the relationship between
Michelangelo’s depiction and Dante ties in well with the historical
background of Giotto’s more traditional work. As Michelangelo
incorporates pagan mythology into a sacred work of art, he demands
from his audience knowledge of Dante, something which would most
likely not have been lost on a sixteenth century viewer.6
So we have a blatant reference to the structure of Hell from a
Dantean perspective however we are denied a view into Hell, only a
bare glimmer of fires in the distance.
Because
Michelangelo does not incorporate a traditional rendering of the
torments of sinners, it is important to focus not on what he fails to
give us, but what is actually shown. If Giotto’s work was intended
as part of a series of frescoes filled with the theme of redemption,
showing the punishments of sin would be appropriate. This would be a
visual warning against what happens to you should you fail to find
redemption and therefore it would become an incentive to repent and
change, as Enrico Scrovegni probably felt he was doing when building
the Arena Chapel and had it decorated with such a scene.
Michelangelo’s
Last
Judgment
has been said to possess an overall theme of hope and victory through
salvation.7
So with this theme in mind, Michelangelo’s rendering of merely the
possibility of damnation keeps much of the despair and inevitability
of eternal torment from the work as a whole. Charon leads the damned
to be judged before Minos where they are then sent to the appropriate
level of hell based upon their mortal sins. It is a psychologically
charged scene that requires the viewer to draw upon this knowledge of
Dante’s Hell, and with it Michelangelo begins a story that his
audience would have known all too well, which was enough for the
artist. He did not have to go overboard with literal depictions; the
threat of torture was left to the imagination of the viewer.
Going
back to Giotto, his traditional work is more in line with the
redemptive theme found in the Scrovegni Chapel as previously
mentioned. It is important to note that Giotto and Dante were at the
very least acquaintances, as Dante writes of Giotto in his work the
Purgatorio,
and there is some scholarly evidence that they collaborated on the
frescoes for the Arena Chapel.8
This collaboration seems plausible if not for the simple fact that
Dante already had ties to the Scrovegni family even if it was not in
the most amicable of ways. It does seem ironic that after consigning
Enrico’s father to Hell among the usurers in Canto XVII of the
Inferno,
that Dante would then be involved in helping devise the frescoes for
the chapel of a family for whom he apparently held in contempt.
This
brings to light a main divide in the connection of Dante to
Michelangelo and of Dante to Giotto. With Michelangelo there is only
a literary and academic tie to Dante, as the artist incorporates key
elements from the poet’s work into his fresco, therefore requiring
his audience to understand the reference and make their own
conclusions about damnation and salvation. With Giotto there is a
tangible, historic tie to Dante, one that is more personal and
political than theological or academic. It is also interesting to
point out that there is little direct reference to any scenes in the
Inferno
found in Giotto’s work; the depictions of hell’s torments and
inhabitants stemming more directly from a traditional iconographical
canon.9
During the previous centuries, the punishment of sins was well
documented in confession manuals, with extremely detailed
descriptions of the hierarchy of sins and their appropriate
punishments.10
It can be assumed that this categorizing of sin would have survived
into Giotto’s time, and of course it would have been used as source
for previous artists in their Last Judgments. So by drawing on
tradition and using easily recognizable figures playing their roles
perfectly, Giotto’s Last
Judgment
is easier to interpret when compared to Michelangelo’s fresco.
The
last point I wish to make concerns any influence Michelangelo may
have received from Giotto’s Last
Judgment.
It seems to me that, focusing strictly on their respective versions
of hell, that Michelangelo perhaps used his own extensive knowledge
of Dante’s work and combined it with an understanding that his
audience would have been well-versed in this allegory. The fact that
he purposefully avoids a direct representation of Hell, as tradition
would have called for, indicates the very peculiar aspect of
Michelangelo’s personality that made him so very different from his
contemporaries. I do not believe that Michelangelo was directly
influenced by Giotto’s work in the Arena Chapel, even allowing for
any theory that suggests he was intimately familiar with the old
master’s frescoes. The connections between the artists’ frescoes
rests solely on their own individual relationships to Dante and it is
this connection that creates the greatest differences in the two
works.
Bibliography
Barnes,
Bernadine. Michelangelo,
Dante and “The Last Judgment”.
The Art Bulletin, vol. 77, no.1. (Mar., 1995)
Battisti,
Eugenio. Giotto:
Biographical and Critical Study,
trans. James Emmons. (Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1960).
Rough,
Robert H.. Enrico
Scrovegni, the Cavalieri Gaudentin, and the Arena Chapel in Padua.
The Art Bulletin, vol. 62, No. 1 (Mar., 1980).
Morgan,
Alison. Dante
and the Medieval Other World.
(Cambridge University Press, 1990).
Shrimplin,
Valerie. Hell
in Michelangelo’s ‘Last Judgment’.
Artibus et Historiae. Vol. 15, No. 30. (1994)
1
Alison Morgan. Dante and the Medieval Other World. (Cambridge
University Press, 1990). 199.
2
Eugenio Battisti. Giotto: Biographical and Critical Study,
trans. James Emmons. (Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1960).
77.
3
Battisti, 78.
4
Robert H. Rough. Enrico Scrovegni, the Cavalieri Gaudentin, and
the Arena Chapel in Padua. The Art Bulletin, vol. 62, No. 1
(Mar., 1980). 4.
5
Bernadine Barnes. Michelangelo, Dante and “The Last Judgment”.
The Art Bulletin, vol. 77, no.1. (Mar., 1995) 69.
6
Barnes, 64.
7
Valerie Shrimplin. Hell in Michelangelo’s ‘Last Judgment’.
Artibus et Historiae. Vol. 15, No. 30. (1994). 96.
8
Battisti, 21.
9
Battisti, 21.
10
Morgan, 131.
