
Lamentation
Two mourners sit with their backs turned to pull us in, and the angels overhead double over. Giotto frescoed it in the Arena Chapel at Padua.

Two mourners sit with their backs turned to pull us in, and the angels overhead double over. Giotto frescoed it in the Arena Chapel at Padua.

Torches and spears bristle against the sky, and at the still center Judas wraps Christ in his yellow cloak and meets his eye.

Giotto had watched Halley's Comet in 1301 and painted the Star of Bethlehem as a comet, apparently the first artist to do it.

Boys climb the trees to break off palm branches while the procession moves along a stage-like ledge under deep blue. Padua, around 1305.

Herod gestures from a balcony while soldiers pull babies out of their mothers' arms. Giotto carries the horror on the mothers' faces alone.

Six angels lean in along the throne with their heads tilted, which turns a rigid Byzantine formula into something nearly intimate.

The Virgin lies on the hillside and turns to lay her son in the manger, looking at his face. No gold, just a cold blue sky.

A steward tastes from a bowl and a portly servant tends the jars, and the miracle goes by almost without anyone noticing.

Christ's fingertips cross out of the human part of the picture and blur into light, which is the whole event in one detail.