La ciudad y su (re)creación poética en la pintura de Giotto

Abstract

The pictorial art is one of the most emblematic andeloquent forms to represent and to recreate thecity in poetic key. This principle was plainly assumed, for example, by almost all Trecento’s Italian painters, mainly by Giotto di Bondone, in avery original and imaginative way. In his copiousfrescoes at Assisi, Padova and Florence, in which he depicts several iconographic programs on the life ofJesus, Mary, Saint Francis and other christiansaints, Giotto uses eight complementary poeticresources to represent in a creative clue the urbanand architectonic surroundings: 1) outer/innerambivalence/; 2) topological metonymy, as a resultof assuming the part as the whole; 3) hyerarchicalselection, when he privilegies the most significantpart of the building; 4) synonymy house=town; 5)architecture as a frame and focus; 6) synoptic synchronism; 7) staging the urban site, in his attemptof exhibiting the city as a scene for the man’s protagonism; 8) descriptive synthesis, on the basis ofan scenographic economy that contrasts with thestyle of other Trecento’s painters. Based on thenumerous analysis of Giotto’s frescoes, this Communication tries to highlight these eight poetic modalities of the city’s recreation by Giotto