13 Facts About Duccio

Duccio was hired throughout his life to complete many important works in government and religious buildings around Italy.

Duccio is considered one of the greatest Italian painters of the Middle Ages, and is credited with creating the painting styles of Trecento Gothic style and the Sienese school.

One avenue to reconstructing Duccio's biography are the traces of him in archives that list when he ran up debts or incurred fines.

Where Duccio studied, and with whom, is still a matter of great debate, but by analyzing his style and technique art historians have been able to limit the field.

Duccio's known works are on wood panel, painted in egg tempera and embellished with gold leaf.

Differently from his contemporaries and artists before him, Duccio was a master of tempera and managed to conquer the medium with delicacy and precision.

Duccio's style was similar to Byzantine art in some ways, with its gold backgrounds and familiar religious scenes; however, it was different and more experimental.

Duccio began to break down the sharp lines of Byzantine art, and soften the figures.

Duccio was one of the first painters to put figures in architectural settings, as he began to explore and investigate depth and space.

Duccio had a refined attention to emotion not seen in other painters at this time.

Duccio's figures seem to be otherworldly or heavenly, consisting of beautiful colors, soft hair, gracefulness and fabrics not available to mere humans.

Duccio influenced many other painters, most notably Simone Martini, and the brothers Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti.

Many of the artists are anonymous, and their connection to Duccio has emerged only from analysis of a body of work with common stylistic traits.