Giotto

Giotto di Bondone (b. 1267 or 1277 - d. 1337 CE), usually referred to as simply Giotto, was an Italian painter and architect whose work was hugely influential in the history of Western art. Giotto is most famous today for the cycle of frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel of Padua where his love of drama is most effective in such scenes as Judas' betrayal of Jesus Christ. An innovative painter who searched for far greater realism and human emotion in art than had been seen previously, he was an artist with a particular skill at constructing single dynamic scenes from familiar religious themes. Often referred to as the 'first Renaissance painter' even if he lived before the Renaissance proper had got underway, Giotto was certainly a bridge between the sometimes flat, characterless religious art of the middle to late medieval period and the lively innovative drama seen in the masterpieces of the High Renaissance.