Maesta (Cimabue)

The Virgin sits enthroned in majesty, maesta, presenting the blessing Child as six angels rise in tiers along the throne, three to a side, against a field of gold. Cimabue still works in the Byzantine manner, with gold-striated drapery and steep frontal hierarchy, yet the throne recedes into a tentative depth and the faces soften toward feeling. Painted for San Francesco in Pisa, it stands at the stylistic boundary between the old way of painting icons and the new, more lifelike style his pupil Giotto would carry forward.