Background
Cimabue was born about 1240 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. He came from the respectable family of the period, which name was probably Gualtieri or Cimabue.
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Cimabue was born about 1240 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. He came from the respectable family of the period, which name was probably Gualtieri or Cimabue.
According to the only source about Cimabue's life and career, Giorgio Vasari's collection of biographies, Lives of the Most Eminent Italian Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1550), he was trained in Florence, Italy by the masters of Byzantine art. So, Cimabue was probably apprenticed by an Italian painter Coppo di Marcovaldo.
The first early painting attributed to Cimabue, the Crucifixion for the San Domenico church in Arezzo, dates from around 1270.
According to some documents, the painter probably moved to Rome in 1272. The same year, Cimabue created one more Crucifixion for the Santa Croce church in Florence. Around eight years later, the artist painted the Maestà in the church of San Francesco at Pisa. These two wooden Crucifixes now usually attributed to Cimabue are in the Church of San Domenico at Arezzo and in the Santa Croce Museum in Florence.
Like most of the great Florentine artists down through Michelangelo, Cimabue seems to have excelled in the vigorous construction and composition of living forms with strong emotional import. The style of Cimabue may still be observed in the Upper Church at Assisi throughout most of the blackened frescoes in the choir and transepts, produced by him between 1288 and 1290. One of these frescos was named Madonna with Child Enthroned, Four Angels and St. Francis.
The famous Rucellai Madonna, which caused such confusion among the painter's earlier critics, is now generally recognized as an early work by the Sienese painter, Duccio di Buoninsegna.
The period of 1290-95 includes such Cimabue's works as The Maestà of Santa Trinita, an altarpiece now in Florence's Uffizi, and the Madonna Enthroned with St. Francis, in the lower church of S. Francesco at Assisi.
Cimabue spent his last years, 1301-1302, in Pisa where he received a commission from the city's cathedral to complete a mosaic of Christ Enthroned, begun by Maestro Francesco. St John the Evangelist in the apse of the cathedral became the only documented work by the artist. Doubts as to the demonstrable existence of any paintings by Cimabue were also dispersed by stylistic comparisons between this mosaic and the St. John in the frescoed Crucifixion of the Upper Church of St. Francis in Assisi, now usually considered his masterpiece.
Cimabue is recognized by tradition and confirmed by modern scholars as the painter whose love to the painted architecture and to naturalism in paintings made an evolution in the Byzantine style.
Cimabue was a teacher of such Late Gothic and Proto-Renaissance Italian famous painters as Giotto and Duccio.
Cimabue's art was recognized by Dante Alighieri in the Divine Comedy.
Virgin Enthroned with Angels
1295Last Supper
Apostle John
Prophet
The Flagellation of Christ
1280Madonna Enthroned with the Child, St. Francis and Four Angels
1280Madonna Enthroned with the Child and Two Angels
1280Crucifix
1283Madonna with Child
1284Madonna and Child Enthroned (Maesta)
1285Kristi Gripande (detail)
Madonna Enthroned with the Child and Angels
Madonna Enthroned with the Child, St. Francis, St. Domenico and two Angels
Virgin and Child
Virgin and Child
Saint Francis of Assisi (detail)
Head of an Angel
The Madonna and Child Enthroned with Two Angels
Allegorical Scene
San Giovanni
Cimabue’s contradictory nature and persistency are reflected in his name which is translated from Latin as 'bull-head' or 'one who crushes the views of others.' This fact is confirmed in Dante Alighieri's work of 1333–34 by an anonymous person who said that Cimabue was so proud and demanding that if others found fault with his work, or if he found something displeasing in it himself, he would destroy the work, no matter how valuable.
Quotes from others about the person
"Cimabue of Florence was a painter who lived during the author's own time, a nobler man than anyone knew but he was as a result so haughty and proud that if someone pointed out to him any mistake or defect in his work, or if he had noted any himself... he would immediately destroy the work, no matter how precious it might be." Giorgio Vasari, Italian painter, architect, writer
"Cimabue thought to hold the field in painting, and now Giotto hath the cry." Dante Alighieri, Italian poet
He was also known as Duccio di Buoninsegna.
