Giovanni di Paolo executes altarpieces for churches…

Giovanni di Paolo executes altarpieces for churches in Siena from 1426 on.

An eclectic yet distinctive painter, he borrows artistic ideas from his Sienese contemporary, Sassetta, as well as from such contemporary Florentine masters as Lorenzo Monaco, Fra Angelico, and Donatello.

Indifferent, however, to his Florentine contemporaries' preoccupation with perspective, Giovanni instead creates fantastic, seemingly endless vistas that are uniquely his own, such as that in the undated “St.

John Entering the Wilderness.” Both his panel paintings and his illuminated manuscripts display Giovanni’s special gift for depicting narratives.

Other influences that pervade Giovanni's work include the richly decorated but naturalistically detailed style of his Florentine contemporary Gentile da Fabriano, and the art of Giovanni's fourteenth-century Sienese predecessors, Duccio di Buoninsegna, Simone Martini, and the Lorenzetti family.