- Giunta Pisano
Giunta Pisano (also named Giunta da Pisa or Giunta Capitini) was an Italian painter. He is the earliest Italian painter whose name is found inscribed on an extant work. He is best known for his crucifixes.
He is said to have exercised his art from
1202 to1236 . He may perhaps have been born towards 1180 in Pisa, and died in or soon after 1250; but other accounts give 1202 as the date of his birth, and the more probable date of 1258 or thereabouts for his death. There is some ground for thinking that his family name was Capiteno or Capitino.Giunta Pisano usually painted upon cloth stretched on wood, and prepared with plaster.
The inscribed work, referred above, is also one of his earliest. It is the "Crocefisso di S. Raniero", a crucifix, that hung a long time in the kitchen of the convent of St Anne in
Pisa . Other Pisan works of about the same date (as the one in San Matteo in Pisa) are very barbarous, and, some of them may be also from the hand of Giunta Pisano before he had achieved his virtuosity (such as S. Benedetto Crucifixion).It is said that he painted for the High Altar of the upper church of Assisi, a Crucifixion dated 1236, with a figure of Father Elias, the general of the Franciscans, embracing the foot of the cross. Now there only exists an 18th-century engraving based on a copy of this portrait [ Rosalind B. Brooke , "Early Franciscan Government", Cambridge University Press; ISBN 0521547989 ] These frescos in Byzantine style, were probabably made in collaboration with Greek artists. In the sacristy is a portrait of
St Francis , also ascribed to Giunta; but it more probably belongs to the close of the13th century .His masterpiece is the imposing Crucifix (1250) in the left transept of Basilica of Saint Dominic in
Bologna , with the writing in Latin "Cuius docta manus me pixit Junta Pisanus" (painted by the hand of Giunta Pisano). It is still much influenced by the Byzantine style and represents one of the best examples of 13th-century Italian painting.These crucifixes show that he initiated a new way of representing Christ, substituting the traditional image of dying Christ in agony. This new depiction, mostly found in Slavonic Europe in direct contact with
Byzantium , was soon to be followed in Italy. This representation of Christ, and especially the crucifix in Basilica of Saint Dominic in Bologna, has much influencedCimabue , who would continue on this style and develop his own more emotional style (as seen in his Crucifix in Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence). Another thoroughly Giuntesque Crucifixion is the right wing of adiptych from theVeneto , found at theChicago Art Institute . cite journal | author=Edward B. Garrison, Jr.| title=Post-War Discoveries: Early Italian Paintings-II | journal=The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs| year=Aug. 1947| volume=89| issue=533| url=http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0951-0788%28194708%2989%3A533%3C210%3APDEIP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage| pages=210–217]Notes
References
*1911
* Benezit E., Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, 10 tomes; Librarie Gründ, Paris 1976; ISBN 2-7000-0153-2 (in French)
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