Masaccio
Florentine painter who pioneered the Early Renaissance with naturalism and perspective.
Masaccio, born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone, was a Florentine painter of the early Italian Renaissance who died in his twenties.[1][2] He is considered a founder of Renaissance art for his dramatic, unprecedented interpretations and experimentation with technique and narrative.[3] According to Vasari, Masaccio was the best painter of his generation due to his skill at imitating nature and creating lifelike, three-dimensional figures.[4]
Quick Facts
- Birth name
- Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Mone (Simone) Cassai
- Born
- 21 December 1401
- Birthplace
- San Giovanni Valdarno, Republic of Florence
- Died
- latter half of 1428 (aged 26)
- Place of death
- Rome, Papal States
- Field
- Painting, Fresco
- Movement
- Early Renaissance
- Patrons
- Felice de Michele Brancacci; ser Giuliano di Colino degli Scarsi da San Giusto
Facts from the source article.
Life and work
Masaccio was born on December 21, 1401, in Castel San Giovanni di Altura, now San Giovanni Valdarno, to a notary father and an innkeeper's daughter.[1][5] His father died in 1406, and his mother later married an elderly apothecary.[6] Masaccio joined the painters' guild in 1422 at age 21.[3] His first attributed work is the San Giovenale Triptych (1422), discovered in 1961 near his hometown.[7]
Around 1422 he began collaborating with the older painter Masolino da Panicale.[3] In 1424 the duo was commissioned to paint frescoes for the Brancacci Chapel in Florence.[8] Masaccio painted the Holy Trinity for Santa Maria Novella around 1427, the earliest surviving painting to use systematic linear perspective.[9][10] He died at the end of 1428, possibly poisoned by a jealous rival according to legend.[11]
What the cited sources add
The Artble biography states Masaccio was called "Moso," meaning "clumsy" or "whimsical," because he cared solely about painting.[3] It notes that Masaccio's mother remarried an aristocrat and the family relocated to Florence.[3] The same source reports that Masaccio's talent was recognized early and he likely worked with Masolino under a mutual contract, not as an apprentice.[3] The Guardian article describes Masaccio as the first to fully master depth and perspective on a two-dimensional surface.[12]
The Guardian notes that Masaccio left Florence for Rome within a year of completing the Holy Trinity, hoping to further his name but ending his life instead.[12] The skeleton in the fresco has an inscription that translates to "I was what you are and what I am you shall be"[12][13]
References
- Wikipedia, "Masaccio" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Masaccio", Oxford University Press; ; (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Masaccio" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The Guardian, Masaccio, the old master who died young", TheGuardian.com, 7 July 2008; Vasari, Giorgio, "The Lives of the Artists" Translated by Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella, Oxford World Classics. (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- "Tommaso Cassai Masaccio Biography", Artble. facts only, no text reused. artble.com
- Wikipedia, "Masaccio" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite de' piu eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori, ed. Gaetano Milanesi, Florence, 1906, II, 287–288. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Masaccio" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: John T. Spike, Masaccio, New York: 1996, 21–64, and Diane Cole Ahl, The Cambridge Companion to Masaccio, Cambridge, 2002, 3–5. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Masaccio" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: On Giovanni's career, see Luciano Bellosi and Margaret Haines, Lo Scheggia, Florence, 1999. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Masaccio" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Roberto Bellucci and Cecilia Frosinini, "The San Giovenale Altarpiece," in The Panel Paintings of Masolino and Masaccio, ed. Carl Brandon Strehlke, Milan, 2002, (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Masaccio" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Umberto Baldini and Ornella Casazza, The Brancacci Chapel, New York, 1990; Diane Cole Ahl, "The Brancacci Chapel," in The Cambridge Companion to Masaccio, ed. D (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Masaccio" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Rita Maria Comanducci, "'L'altare Nostro de la Trinità': Masaccio's Trinity and the Berti Family," The Burlington Magazine, 145 (2003) 14–21. Most scholars had (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Masaccio" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Masaccio (1401-28)", 11 March 2018 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Masaccio" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Tommaso Cassai Masaccio Biography", Artble (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- "The Guardian, Masaccio, the old master who died young", TheGuardian.com, 7 July 2008. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
- Wikipedia, "Masaccio" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Alessandro Cortesi, "Una lettura teologica," in La Trinità di Masaccio: il restauro dell'anno duemila, ed. Cristina Danti, Florence, 2002, 49–56; Verdon, 158–16; Cothren, "Art History Portable, Book 4 14th–17th Century Art.", Prentice Hall, 2010; B. Deimling, Early Renaissance Art in Florence and Central Italy, in R. Tolman (ed.), The Art of Italian Renaissance, Konemann, 1995, p. 244-246 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Masaccio (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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