Nativity

Spinello Aretino was one of the last great painters in the Giottesque tradition, active across Tuscany from Arezzo to Florence and Pisa in the late fourteenth century. This Nativity, now in the Courtauld Gallery in London, exemplifies his mastery of narrative composition and his role as a bridge between the Trecento tradition and the emerging International Gothic style. The Nativity was a central subject in Gothic devotional art, and Spinello's treatments of this theme were widely influential.

Tempera on gold-ground panel, displaying Spinello's vigorous figural style and warm Tuscan coloring. The composition arranges the sacred figures within a rocky landscape setting, combining Giottesque spatial clarity with the decorative refinement increasingly favored in late fourteenth-century painting.