Scrovegni Chapel — Padua, Veneto, Italy
No posts from Scrovegni Chapel yet.
Lamentation by Giotto, 1305
The whole chapel this sits in was paid for by a banker's son — supposedly to make up for the money his father made lending at interest, which the Church counted as a sin at the time. It's one panel out of a whole wall of them telling the story in order, so it was never meant to be looked at on its own.
Erisava: That sky looks like a hung-up backdrop, and the crying still gets me anyway.
Kiss of Judas by Giotto, 1303
This isn't a standalone picture — it's one panel in a whole room of them, painted straight onto the walls in sequence. The man who paid for the chapel had inherited a moneylending fortune, and from what I've read Dante had already stuck his father in hell over it, so the whole thing gets described as a very expensive apology.
Erisava: Nobody in this crowd looks like they're moving, and it still feels violent.