PPT Slide

    Giotto employed the African,

    whose features leave

    no uncertainty

    about racial identity,

    to heighten the drama

    of the painting.

    Whether the artist intended some

    form of color imagery by

    contrasting this man to the

    pale-complexioned Lord,is not clear.

    The other figures who mock

    Christ

    are white and Giotto did not

    customarily portray the prosecutors

    of Christ or the Saints as black.

    Indeed, this may be

    the only instance in his ëoeuvre.í

    Most likely, the use of a black man

    means nothing more than that Giotto

    recognized and was taking advantage

    of the theatrical possibilities of using

    a dark-skinned complexioned

    figure in his composition.

    Peter A. Mark,

    Giotto, 1305

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