Cimabue seems the most notable
instance in early times of a Byzantine-educated painter who improved upon the traditions. He has been called the father of Italian
painting, but Italian painting had no father.

Cimabue was simply a man of more originality and ability than his contemporaries, and departed further from the art teachings of the time without decidedly opposing them. He retained the Byzantine pattern, but loosened the lines of drapery somewhat, turned the head to one side, infused the figure with a little appearance of life.

His contemporaries elsewhere in Italy
were doing the same thing, and none of them was any more than a link in the progressive chain.