Giotto di Bondone

Giotto di Bondone.... Where medieval art learned to look

Spend the term studying the revolutionary work of Giotto di Bondone, the artist who helped move Western art from flat, symbolic iconography toward a sacred embodiment of emotion, space, and lived human experience. Working at the turn of the 14th century, Giotto transformed how stories of faith were seen—giving weight to bodies, depth to space, and feeling to faces.

Through his fresco cycles, students will encounter a world where holiness is no longer distant or purely symbolic, but near, embodied, and emotionally present. Giotto’s figures grieve, rejoice, gesture, and inhabit real space, inviting the viewer into the drama of the sacred story itself. His work marks a turning point between the medieval and the Renaissance, where art begins to observe the world as it truly appears while still pointing toward divine truth.

In this study, students will:

• Explore the shift from symbolic iconography to narrative realism
• Learn how Giotto used space, gesture, and emotion to tell sacred stories
• Observe early developments in perspective, volume, and composition

This guide is designed to be used over one term (12 weeks), with one lesson each week lasting approximately 20 minutes. Students are encouraged to look slowly, narrate carefully, and return often—allowing these images to form the imagination and deepen attentiveness to truth, beauty, and meaning.

Supplies needed:

• Knights of Art: Stories from the Italian Painters by Amy Steedman (Living Book Press edition) OR Stories of the Painters by Amy Steedman (Yesterday’s Classics edition) – page numbers are slightly off but read the chapter on Giotto
• notebook or artbook
• pencils, colored pencils or watercolor supplies

Recommended contemporary and complimentary studies:

History – The Symphony of History, Vol. 2 Nocturne (Middle Ages)

Geography – Asia “Rising Light”

Composer – Echoes in the Cloister and Ralph Vaughan Williams and Echoes in the Courts

Poetry – Geoffrey Chaucer and Gerard Manley Hopkins and Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Picture – John Everett Millais and Albrecht Durer

Folk songs – Minstrels and Troubadours (coming Summer 2026)



*the guide includes QR Codes for easy links, if you choose to print the document.

For printing, we recommend our print partner Humble Heart Press.

** due to the nature of digital products, we are unable to accept returns.