Masaccio

Masaccio (December 21, 1401 – summer 1428) was born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone. A Florentine painter, he is considered the first major Italian artist of the Quattrocento, the Early Italian Renaissance. The writer Vasari called him the finest painter of his day, praising his ability to copy nature, create lifelike figures and motion, and produce a convincing illusion of depth. He painted nudes and used foreshortening, techniques rarely seen before him.

His nickname, Masaccio, is a playful twist on Maso (short for Tommaso) meaning "clumsy" or "messy" Tom. It likely set him apart from his main collaborator, also named Maso, who became known as Masolino ("little/delicate Tom").

Though his career was short, Masaccio had a deep impact on later artists and is credited with launching the Early Italian Renaissance in painting during the mid- and late-1420s. He was among the first to use linear perspective, including the vanishing point. He rejected the International Gothic style and ornate decoration of artists like Gentile da Fabriano, favoring a more naturalistic approach that used perspective and chiaroscuro for greater realism. He died at twenty-six; little is known about the circumstances. Upon hearing the news, Filippo Brunelleschi said, "We have suffered a great loss."

Masaccio was born in Castel San Giovanni di Altura (now San Giovanni Valdarno, in the province of Arezzo, Tuscany) to Giovanni di Simone Cassai, a notary, and Jacopa di Martinozzo, the daughter of an innkeeper from Barberino di Mugello. The family name Cassai came from his paternal grandfather Simone and granduncle Lorenzo, who were carpenters and cabinet makers (casse). His father died in 1406 when Masaccio was five; later that year, a brother named Giovanni (1406–1486) was born. Giovanni also became a painter, nicknamed Lo Scheggia ("the splinter"). In 1412, his mother married an elderly apothecary, Tedesco di maestro Feo, who had several daughters. One of them later married Mariotto di Cristofano (1393–1457), the only other documented painter from Castel San Giovanni.

Nothing is known of Masaccio’s artistic training. Renaissance painters usually began an apprenticeship around age twelve, so he likely moved to Florence for instruction. He is not recorded in the city until January 7, 1422, when he joined the painters’ guild (the Arte de' Medici e Speziali) as an independent master, signing as "Masus S. Johannis Simonis pictor populi S. Nicholae de Florentia."

His first known works are the San Giovenale Triptych (1422), now in the Masaccio Museum of Sacred Art in Cascia di Reggello near Florence, and the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (Sant'Anna Metterza) (c. 1424) at the Uffizi. The San Giovenale altarpiece was discovered in 1961 in the church of San Giovenale at Cascia di Reggello, near his hometown. It shows the Virgin and Child with angels in the center panel, Saints Bartholomew and Blaise on the left, and Saints Juvenal (San Giovenale) and Anthony Abbot on the right. The painting has lost much of its original frame and its surface is badly worn, but Masaccio’s effort to create three-dimensionality through volumetric figures and foreshortened forms is clear, reviving Giotto’s approach rather than following contemporary trends.

The second work was likely Masaccio’s first collaboration with the older, well-known artist Masolino da Panicale (1383/4–c. 1436). The nature of their partnership is unclear. Since Masolino was much older, he probably took Masaccio under his wing, but the division of hands in Virgin and Child with Saint Anne is so distinct that the older artist does not seem to have been in control. Masolino is thought to have painted Saint Anne and the angels holding the cloth of honor behind her, while Masaccio painted the more important Virgin and Child on their throne. Masolino’s figures are delicate, graceful, and somewhat flat; Masaccio’s are solid and hefty.

In Florence, Masaccio studied Giotto’s works and became friends with Brunelleschi and Donatello. According to Vasari, at their urging he traveled to Rome with Masolino in 1423. After that, he shed all Gothic and Byzantine influence, as seen in his altarpiece for the Carmelite Church in Pisa. Traces of ancient Roman and Greek art in some of his works likely came from this trip. They would also have appeared in a lost fresco called the Sagra (known today through drawings, including one by Michelangelo), commissioned for the consecration of the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence on April 19, 1422. It was destroyed when the church’s cloister was rebuilt at the end of the 16th century.

In 1424, the "well and known duo" of Masaccio and Masolino was hired by the wealthy Felice Brancacci to paint a cycle of frescoes for the Brancacci Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence. The two artists likely worked simultaneously, beginning the painting around that time.