Man of the Century

Quick Quiz: Who is the only artist to be named “man of the century”? Picasso? Did Demoiselles d'Avignon and Guernica preach love and peace to define the twentieth century? I wish they did, but, sadly, no. You have to go back all the way to the fourteenth century to find TIME Magazine’s “Man of the 14^th Century,” as named in their 1999 end-of-the-millennium roundup. By painting people three-dimensionally and more humanly than ever before, Giotto di Bondone started a revolution that no artist has equaled since. Will any, can any, ever top Giotto, who died on this date in 1337? (Giotto’s The Arrest of Christ, also known as The Kiss of Judas, one of the scenes of the life of Christ painted in the Cappella Scrovegni from 1304 through 1306, appears above.) Please click over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Man of the Century."