Who was Masaccio and why is he important in art history?
Masaccio, born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone on the 21st of December 1401, was a Florentine painter regarded as the first great Italian painter of the Quattrocento and the founder of the Early Italian Renaissance in painting. He was among the first artists to use systematic linear perspective and the vanishing point, and he moved away from the flat, decorative style of International Gothic art toward a more naturalistic mode that employed chiaroscuro for three-dimensional realism.
What does the name Masaccio mean?
Masaccio is a comic enlargement of Maso, itself a shortening of Tommaso. In Italian the suffix conveys something ungainly, so the name roughly translates as "clumsy" or "messy" Tom. It was coined partly to distinguish him from his principal collaborator, also named Maso, who went by the opposite diminutive Masolino, meaning "little or delicate Tom."
What is the Brancacci Chapel and what did Masaccio paint there?
The Brancacci Chapel is a chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, commissioned in 1424 by the wealthy Felice Brancacci for a cycle of frescoes depicting mainly the life of Saint Peter. Masaccio's contributions include the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden and The Tribute Money, both notable for their emotional directness, directional lighting tied to the real chapel window, and use of linear and atmospheric perspective. The cycle was left unfinished and completed in the 1480s by Filippino Lippi.
What is the Holy Trinity fresco by Masaccio and where can it be seen?
The Holy Trinity is a fresco Masaccio painted around 1427 for the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, where it can still be seen today. It is considered his masterwork and is the earliest surviving painting to use systematic linear perspective throughout its entire composition. Below the sacred figures a skeleton lies on a sarcophagus with an inscription reading "I once was what now you are and what I am, you shall yet be."
How old was Masaccio when he died and what happened to him?
Masaccio died in the summer of 1428 at the age of twenty-six. The exact circumstances of his death are unknown. A legend holds that he was poisoned by a jealous rival painter, but this has never been confirmed.
Which famous artists were influenced by Masaccio?
Giorgio Vasari listed Leonardo da Vinci, Perugino, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Andrea del Sarto among the celebrated artists who studied Masaccio's frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel. Masaccio's Expulsion from the Garden of Eden is specifically noted to have had a profound influence on Michelangelo and his work.