Sacred Art

Sacred art is true and beautiful when its form corresponds to its particular vocation: evoking and glorifying, in faith and adoration, the transcendent mystery of God - the surpassing invisible beauty of truth and love visible in Christ, who "reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature," in whom "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily." This spiritual beauty of God is reflected in the most holy Virgin Mother of God, the angels, and saints. Genuine sacred art draws man to adoration, to prayer, and to the love of God, Creator and Savior, the Holy One and Sanctifier. (CCC 2502)

For this reason bishops, personally or through delegates, should see to the promotion of sacred art, old and new, in all its forms and, with the same religious care, remove from the liturgy and from places of worship everything which is not in conformity with the truth of faith and the authentic beauty of sacred art. (CCC 2503)

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The Giotto Crucifix

The History of the Painting

The work belongs to the period of Giotto's youth (probably realized ca. 1288-90) and constitutes a fundamental moment for the history of Italian art, since in this work the artist begins his renewal of Italian painting style and iconography by realizing a new figure of Christ on the cross, profoundly natural and human, rather than the previous images of the divinity, Byzantine in origin, which were mainly symbolic.

At the beginning of the 1200's, in fact, the new Christus patiens iconographic model was spread throughout Italy by the Pisan school, as the great success of Giunta demonstrates, with his production of various painted crosses in Pisa, Assisi, and Bologna. This was the model followed in Florence by Coppo di Marcovaldo and then by Cimabue, who with his work for Santa Croce establishes the direct precedent which Giotto had to confront a few years later.

The cross painted by Giotto for the Dominican convent of Santa Maria Novella is, therefore, at the same time an exceptional document of Giotto's artistic and expressive turning point and a manifesto of the new religiosity proposed to the people by the Dominicans.

The elements that make up this new language are the natural construction and three-dimensionality of the body, volumetric and pulled down by gravity that makes the arms bend, the curved hands rendered in a stupendous prospective vision, and the real, human expression of Christ's suffering. The powerful affirmation of the human physicality of Christ contains an evident message for the Cathar heresy, then present in Florence, that condemned physical reality as something belonging to evil, opposed to the spiritual world, according to a Manicheanism of ancient origin.

The prominent religious commitment of the Dominicans consisted precisely in their opposition to this heresy. For this reason here is emphasized the human and concrete body of Christ who conquers death and promises mankind to resurrect on the last day in the completeness of body and spirit.

This extraordinary artistic masterpiece is also a masterpiece from the technical point of view: the great cross, 5.4 meters high, is a high-quality wood construction assembled according to refined criteria, and the painting remains as a witness both to the young artist's profound knowledge of traditional techniques and to his will to innovation in this field as well.