a vestige of Crucifix by Cimabue
From Wikipedia:
Cenni di Pepo (Giovanni) Cimabue (c. 1240 — c. 1302) also known as Bencivieni Di Pepo or in modern Italian, Benvenuto Di Giuseppe, was a Italian painter and creator of mosaics from Florence. He is also known as the artist who discovered Giotto. Cimabue is generally regarded as the last great painter working in the Byzantine tradition. The art of this period comprised scenes and forms that appeared relatively flat and highly stylized. Cimabue was a pioneer in the move towards naturalism, as his figures were depicted with rather more life-like proportions and shading.
Owing to little surviving documentation, not much is known about Cimabue’s life. He was born in Florence. His career was described in Giorgio Vasari’s The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (called, in Italian, Le Vite), widely regarded as the first art history book, though it was completed over 200 years after Cimabue’s death. Although it is one of the few early records we have of him, its accuracy is uncertain. Vasari wrote that in the artist’s youth:
“ Instead of studying his letters, Cimabue spent all his time covering his paper and his books with pictures showing people, horses, houses, and various other things he dreamt up. ”
Such remarks concerning precocious devotion to art are, however, common in artists’ biographies of the 16th and 17th centuries.
He was mentioned in Dante’s Purgatorio.
Cimabue died in Pisa.
Judging by the commissions that he received, Cimabue appears to have been a highly-regarded artist in his day. While he was at work in Florence, Duccio was the major artist, and perhaps his rival, in nearby Siena. Cimabue was commissioned to paint two very large frescoes for the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. They are on the walls of the transepts: a Crucifixion and a Deposition. Unfortunately these works are now dim shadows of their original appearance. During occupancy of the building by invading French troops, straw caught fire, severely damaging the frescoes. The white paint was partially composed of silver, which oxidised and turned black, leaving the faces and much of the drapery of the figures in negative.
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