Giovanni Di Paolo - Works and Influences

Works and Influences

Giovanni di Paolo was influenced by many great artists in Trecento and Quattrocento Italy. It is believed that he may have owned a model book of other artists’ work he could flip through and use that would fit his paintings. A few of these include; Gentile de Fabriano's two Florentine altarpieces, Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Presentation in the Temple, and the Baptistery reliefs by Donatello. He would then be able to alter, modify, and combine these artists’ works into his own piece of art. Throughout his paintings one can see how this model book was utilized because of certain figures he repeatedly used, "His isolated detail, a single figure, or group copied from another image is shown that he is naturally drawn to the inventions of his fellow artists". However much it would be looked down upon today to copy, in Trecento and Quattrocento Siena the culture valued an artist that could manipulate others work and make it their own as creatively as Giovanni did.

Giovanni di Paolo was influenced by many artists during his time, which can be seen in a number of his paintings. Giovanni's Raising of Lazarus is based on the same scene of Duccio's Maestà, "But where Duccio's figures are sober and restrained, Giovanni di Paolo's are voluble and animated". Giovanni was open to solutions other than the Sienese tradition which, "...made him receptive to sources farther afield as well". One of these is the occasion where he painted a picture he had drawn from a mural in Assisi". His work and style show the transition from the Sienese and Gothic style into the Renaissance.

His style also took on the influence of International Gothic artists such as Gentile da Fabriano. He was an artist of great consequence who had been invited by Pope Martin V to Rome. On his way to Rome, Gentile stopped in Siena, where Giovanni quickly assimilated Gentile's techniques. One technique he kept was Gentile's fascination with nature. Instead of using standing saints, as was customary, in his painting Giovanni used sprigs of flowering plants.

Giovanni di Paolo's Adoration of the Magi and Gentile da Fabriano's Adoration of the Magi are one example of how nature was used by both artists and how Giovanni was able to create the same use of animals and plants from Gentile and make it his own. Where Gentile was capable of darkness and mystery, Giovanni, "...saw nature as untarnished and ever-benign". These works of art that Giovanni integrated into his own were, "...waiting to be imbued with personal meaning" a creation Giovanni was able to do well.