Giotto.......................

 

Annunciation: The Virgin Receiving the Message
Giotto      fresco    1306

Adoration of the Magi
Giotto       fresco    c 1311 - c 1320

St. Francis Mourned by St. Clare
Giotto     fresco      c 1330

That very obligation which the craftsmen of painting owe to nature, who serves continually as model to those who are ever wresting the good from her best and most beautiful features and striving to counterfeit and to imitate her, should be owed, in my belief to Giotto, painter of Florence, for the reason that, after the methods of good paintings and their outlines had lain buried for so many years under the ruins of the wars, he alone, although born among inept craftsmen, by the gift of God revived that art, which had come to a grievous pass, and brought it to such a form as could be called good.

-Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects