Masaccio

Masaccio
Detail of St. Peter Raising the Son of Theophilus and St. Peter Enthroned as First Bishop of Antioch, Brancacci Chapel, S. Maria del Carmine, Florence
Born
Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Mone (Simone) Cassai

(1401-12-21)December 21, 1401
San Giovanni Valdarno, Republic of Florence
Diedlatter half of 1428 (aged 26)
Rome, Papal States
NationalityItalian
Known forPainting, Fresco
Notable workBrancacci Chapel (Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Tribute Money) c. 1425–28
Pisa Altarpiece 1426
Holy Trinity c. 1427
MovementEarly Renaissance
Patron(s)Felice de Michele Brancacci
ser Giuliano di Colino degli Scarsi da San Giusto

Masaccio (UK: /mæˈsætʃioʊ/, US: /məˈsɑːtʃioʊ, məˈzɑːtʃ(i)oʊ/;[1][2][3] Italian: [maˈzattʃo]; December 21, 1401 – summer 1428), born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone, was a Florentine artist who is regarded as the first great Italian painter of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance. According to Vasari, Masaccio was the best painter of his generation because of his skill at imitating nature, recreating lifelike figures and movements as well as a convincing sense of three-dimensionality.[4] He employed nudes and foreshortenings in his figures. This had seldom been done before him.[5]

The name Masaccio is a humorous version of Maso (short for Tommaso), meaning "clumsy" or "messy" Tom. The name may have been created to distinguish him from his principal collaborator, also called Maso, who came to be known as Masolino ("little/delicate Tom").

Despite his brief career, he had a profound influence on other artists and is considered to have started the Early Italian Renaissance in painting with his works in the mid- and late-1420s. He was one of the first to use linear perspective in his painting, employing techniques such as vanishing point in art for the first time. He moved away from the International Gothic style and elaborate ornamentation of artists like Gentile da Fabriano to a more naturalistic mode that employed perspective and chiaroscuro for greater realism.

Masaccio died at the age of twenty-six and little is known about the exact circumstances of his death.[6] Upon hearing of Masaccio’s death, Filippo Brunelleschi said: "We have suffered a great loss."[5]

  1. ^ "Masaccio" (US) and "Masaccio". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 2020-03-22.
  2. ^ "Masaccio". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). HarperCollins. Retrieved June 1, 2019.
  3. ^ "Masaccio". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved June 1, 2019.
  4. ^ Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite de' piu eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori, ed. Gaetano Milanesi, Florence, 1906, II, 287–288.
  5. ^ a b Vasari, Giorgio, "The Lives of the Artists" Translated by Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella, Oxford World Classics.
  6. ^ "The Guardian, Masaccio, the old master who died young". TheGuardian.com. 7 July 2008.