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), bornTommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone, was a Florentine artist who is regarded as the first greatItalian painter of theQuattrocento period of theItalian Renaissance. According toVasari, 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 asMasolino ("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 linearperspective in his painting, employing techniques such asvanishing point in art for the first time. He moved away from theInternational Gothic style and elaborate ornamentation of artists likeGentile da Fabriano to a more naturalistic mode that employed perspective andchiaroscuro for greaterrealism.
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]
Masaccio was born to Giovanni di Simone Cassai and Jacopa di Martinozzo in Castel San Giovanni di Altura, nowSan Giovanni Valdarno (today part of theprovince of Arezzo,Tuscany).[7] His father was anotary and his mother the daughter of an innkeeper ofBarberino di Mugello, a town a few miles north ofFlorence. His family name, Cassai, comes from the trade of his paternal grandfather Simone and granduncle Lorenzo, who were carpenters/cabinet makers (casse, hencecassai). Masaccio's father died in 1406, when he was only five; later that same year a brother was born, named Giovanni (1406–1486) after his father. He also was to become a painter, with the nickname ofLo Scheggia meaning "the splinter".[8] In 1412 Monna Jacopa married an elderlyapothecary, Tedesco di maestro Feo, who already had several daughters, one of whom grew up to marry the only other documented painter from Castel San Giovanni, Mariotto di Cristofano (1393–1457).
There is no evidence for Masaccio's artistic education;[9] however, Renaissance painters traditionally began an apprenticeship with an established master around the age of 12. Masaccio would likely have had to move to Florence to receive his training, but he was not documented in the city until he joined the painters guild (the Arte de' Medici e Speziali) as an independent master on January 7, 1422, signing as "Masus S. Johannis Simonis pictor populi S. Nicholae de Florentia."
The San Giovenale altarpiece was discovered in 1961 in the church of San Giovenale at Cascia di Reggello, very close to Masaccio's hometown. It depicts the Virgin and Child with angels in the central panel, Sts. Bartholomew and Blaise on the left panel, and Sts. Juvenal (i.e. San Giovenale) and Anthony Abbot in the right panel. The painting has lost much of its original framing, and its surface is badly abraded.[10] Nevertheless, Masaccio's concern to suggest three-dimensionality through volumetric figures and foreshortened forms is apparent, and stands as a revival ofGiotto's approach, rather than a continuation of contemporary trends.
The second work was perhaps Masaccio's first collaboration with the older and already-renowned artist,Masolino da Panicale (1383/4–c. 1436). The circumstances of the two artists' collaboration are unclear; since Masolino was considerably older, it seems likely that he brought Masaccio under his wing, but the division of hands in theVirgin and Child with Saint Anne is so marked that it is hard to see the older artist as the controlling figure in this commission.[11] Masolino is believed to have painted the figure of St. Anne and the angels that hold 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, while Masaccio's are solid and hefty.
In Florence, Masaccio could study the works ofGiotto and become friends withBrunelleschi andDonatello. According toVasari, at their prompting in 1423 Masaccio travelled to Rome with Masolino: from that point he was freed of allGothic andByzantine influence, as seen in hisaltarpiece for the Carmelite Church inPisa. The traces of influences from ancient Roman and Greek art that are present in some of Masaccio's works presumably originated from this trip: they should also have been present in a lostSagra, (today known through some drawings, including one byMichelangelo), a fresco commissioned for the consecration ceremony of the church ofSanta Maria del Carmine in Florence (April 19, 1422). It was destroyed when the church's cloister was rebuilt at the end of the 16th century.
In 1424, the "duo preciso e noto" ("well and known duo") of Masaccio and Masolino was commissioned by the powerful and wealthy Felice Brancacci to execute a cycle of frescoes for theBrancacci Chapel in the church ofSanta Maria del Carmine in Florence. With the two artists probably working simultaneously, the painting began around 1425, but for unknown reasons the chapel was left unfinished, and was completed by Filippino Lippi in the 1480s. The iconography of the fresco decoration is somewhat unusual; while the majority of the frescoes represent the life of St. Peter, two scenes, on either side of the threshold of the chapel space, depict the temptation and expulsion of Adam and Eve. As a whole, the frescoes recount the life of St Peter as if it were the story of salvation.[12] The style of Masaccio's scenes shows the influence of Giotto especially. Figures are large, heavy, and solid; emotions are expressed through faces and gestures; and there is a strong impression of naturalism throughout the paintings. Unlike Giotto, however, Masaccio uses linear and atmospheric perspective, directional light, andchiaroscuro, which is the representation of form through light and color without outlines. As a result, his frescoes are even more convincingly lifelike than those of his trecento predecessor.
Masaccio'sfresco ofThe Expulsion (1426–1427)When it was cleaned in the 1980s, the added fig leaves were removed.
The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, depicts a distressedAdam and Eve, chased from the garden by a threatening angel. Adam covers his entire face to express his shame, while Eve covers her breasts and groin. The fresco had a huge influence onMichelangelo and his work. Another major work isThe Tribute Money in whichJesus and the Apostles are depicted as neo-classical archetypes. Scholars have often noted that the shadows of the figures all fall away from the chapel window, as if the figures are lit by it; this is an added stroke of verisimilitude and further tribute to Masaccio's innovative genius. In theResurrection of the Son of Theophilus, he painted a pavement in perspective, framed by large buildings to obtain a three-dimensional space in which the figures are placed proportionate to their surroundings. In this he was a pioneer in applying the newly discovered rules of perspective.
In September 1425 Masolino left the work and went toHungary. It is not known if this was because of money quarrels with Felice or an artistic divergence with Masaccio. It has also been supposed that Masolino planned this trip from the very beginning, and needed a close collaborator who could continue the work after his departure. But Masaccio left the frescoesunfinished in 1426 in order to respond to other commissions, probably coming from the same patron. However, it has also been suggested that the declining finances of Felice Brancacci were insufficient to pay for any further work, so the painter sought work elsewhere.
Raising of the Son of Theophilus of Antioch, containing self-portrait of Masaccio(third from right)
Masaccio returned in 1427 to work again in the Carmine, beginning theResurrection of the Son of Theophilus, but apparently left it, too, unfinished, although it has been suggested that the painting was severely damaged later in the century because it had contained portraits of the Brancacci family, at that time excoriated as enemies of theMedici.[13] This painting was either restored or completed more than fifty years later byFilippino Lippi.
Some of the scenes completed by Masaccio and Masolino were lost in a fire in 1771; we know about them only through Vasari's biography. The surviving parts were extensively blackened by smoke. In the twentieth century, the removal of marble slabs covering two areas of the paintings revealed the original appearance of the work.[14]
On February 19, 1426, Masaccio was commissioned by Giuliano di Colino degli Scarsi da San Giusto, for the sum of 80 florins, to paint a major altarpiece, thePisa Altarpiece, for his chapel in the church ofSanta Maria del Carmine inPisa. The work was dismantled and dispersed in the 18th century, and only eleven of about twenty original panels have been rediscovered in various collections around the world.[15] The central panel of the altarpiece (The Madonna and Child) is now in theNational Gallery, London. Although it is very damaged, the work features a sculptural and human Madonna as well as a convincing perspectival depiction of her throne. Masaccio probably worked on it entirely in Pisa, shuttling back and forth to Florence, where he was still working on the Brancacci Chapel. In these years,Donatello was also working in Pisa at a monument for Cardinal Rinaldo Brancacci, to be sent toNaples. It is suggested that Masaccio's first ventures in plasticity and perspective were based on Donatello's sculpture, before he could studyBrunelleschi's more scientific approach to perspective.
Holy Trinity, in full:Trinity with the Virgin, Saint John the Evangelist, and Donors (c. 1427) – Fresco,Santa Maria Novella, Florence
Around 1427 Masaccio won a prestigious commission to produce aHoly Trinity for the Dominican church ofSanta Maria Novella inFlorence. No contemporary documents record the patron of the fresco, but recently references to ownership of a tomb at the foot of the fresco have been found in the records of the Berti family of the Santa Maria Novella Quarter of Florence; this working-class family expressed a long-standing devotion to the Trinity, and may well have commissioned Masaccio's painting.[16] Probably it is the male patron who is represented to the left of the Virgin in the painting, while his wife is right of St. John the Evangelist. The fresco, considered by many to be Masaccio's masterwork, is the earliest surviving painting to use systematic linear perspective, possibly devised by Masaccio with the assistance of Brunelleschi.[17]
According to the reconstruction[18] Masaccio started by producing a rough drawing of the composition and perspective lines on the wall. The drawing was covered with fresh plaster for making the fresco. To ensure the precise transfer of the perspective lines from the sketch to the plaster, Masaccio inserted a nail in at thevanishing point under the base of the cross and attached strings to it, which he pressed in (or carved into) the plaster. The marks of the preparatory works are still visible.
The sacred figures and the donors are represented above an image of a skeleton lying on a sarcophagus. An inscription seemingly carved into the wall above the skeleton reads: "Io fui gia quel che voi siete e quel ch'io sono voi anco sarete" (I once was what now you are and what I am, you shall yet be). This skeleton is both a reference to Adam, whose sin brought humans to death, and a reminder to viewers that their time on earth is transitory. It is only through faith in the Trinity, the fresco suggests, that one overcomes this death.[19] The Holy Spirit is seen in the form of a dove, above Jesus.[20] The combination of trinity, death and decay "can be interpreted as a transposition of the Golgotha chapel"[18] in theChurch of the Holy Sepulchre inJerusalem.
Masaccio produced two other works, aNativity and anAnnunciation, now lost, before leaving forRome, where his companion Masolino was frescoing a chapel with scenes from the life of St. Catherine in theBasilica di San Clemente. It has never been confirmed that Masaccio collaborated on that work, even though it is possible that he contributed to Masolino's polyptych for the altar ofSanta Maria Maggiore with his panel portrayingSt. Jerome and St. John the Baptist, now in theNational Gallery, London. Masaccio died at the end of 1428. According to a legend, he was poisoned by a jealous rival painter.[21]
Only four frescoes undoubtedly from Masaccio's hand still exist today, although many other works have been at least partially attributed to him. Others are believed to have been destroyed.
Masaccio profoundly influenced the art of painting and is considered to have begun the Early Italian Renaissance in painting. According to Vasari, all "most celebrated" Florentine "sculptors and painters" studied his frescoes extensively in order to "learn the precepts and rules for painting well." He transformed the direction of Italian painting, moving it away from the idealizations of Gothic art, and, for the first time, presenting it as part of a more profound, natural, and humanist world. Moreover, Masaccio influenced a great many artists both while he was alive and posthumously. His influence is particularly notable in the works of Florentine minor masters, such asAndrea di Giusto,Giovanni dal Ponte, and others who attempted to replicate his glowing, lifelike forms, whilst in 1817Auguste Couder producedThe Death of Masaccio.
^John T. Spike,Masaccio, New York: 1996, 21–64, and Diane Cole Ahl,The Cambridge Companion to Masaccio, Cambridge, 2002, 3–5.
^On Giovanni's career, see Luciano Bellosi and Margaret Haines,Lo Scheggia, Florence, 1999.
^Vasari (II, 295) implies that Masolino was Masaccio's teacher, but the earliest known work by Masaccio (theSan Giovenale Triptych) is painted in a style so different from Masolino's approach that it is hard to tie the two together (Luciano Berti, "Masaccio 1422,"Commentari 12 (1961) 84–107. Scholars cannot agree on any teacher for the young artist, though several names (Mariotto di Cristofano, Bicci di Lorenzo, Niccolo di ser Lapo) have been put forward. Recently scholars have also suggested that he may have trained as a manuscript illuminator. Roberto Bellucci and Cecilia Frosinini, "Masaccio: Technique in Context," inThe Cambridge Companion to Masaccio, ed. Diane Cole Ahl, Cambridge, 2002, 105–122.
^Roberto Bellucci and Cecilia Frosinini, "The San Giovenale Altarpiece," inThe Panel Paintings of Masolino and Masaccio, ed. Carl Brandon Strehlke, Milan, 2002, 69–79;Dillian Gordon, "The Altarpieces of Masaccio," inThe Cambridge Companion to Masaccio, ed. Diane Cole Ahl, Cambridge, 2002, 124–126.
^Roberto Longhi, "Fatti di Masolino e di Masaccio,"Critica d'arte 25-6 (1940) 145–191.
^Umberto Baldini and Ornella Casazza,The Brancacci Chapel, New York, 1990; Diane Cole Ahl, "The Brancacci Chapel," inThe Cambridge Companion to Masaccio, ed. Diane Cole Ahl, Cambridge, 2002, 138–157; J.T. Spike, “The Brancacci Code,” inWatching Art: Writings in Honor of James Beck, ed. L. Catterson and M. Zucker (Todi: Ediart, 2006), pp. 247–54.
^Casazza, Ornella. 1990.Masaccio and the Brancacci Chapel. Antella, Firenze, Italy: Scala. p. 46.OCLC25093965
^Casazza, Ornella. 1990.Masaccio and the Brancacci Chapel. Antella, Firenze, Italy: Scala. p. 15.OCLC25093965
^Jill Dunkerton and Dillian Gordon, "The Pisa Altarpiece", inThe Panel Paintings of Masolino and Masaccio: The Role of Technique, ed. Carl Brandon Strehlke, Milan, 2002, 89–109.
^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 thought that the Lenzi family commissioned the fresco: Ugo Procacci, "Nuove testimonianze su Masaccio,"Commentari, 27 (1976) 233-4; Rona Goffen,Masaccio's "Trinity," Cambridge, 1998; Timothy Verdon, "Masaccio'sTrinity," inThe Cambridge Companion to Masaccio, ed. Diane Cole Ahl, Cambridge, 2002, 158–160.
^"Masaccio (1401-28)". 11 March 2018. Archived from the original on 9 April 2018. Retrieved8 April 2018.
^abB. Deimling, Early Renaissance Art in Florence and Central Italy, in R. Tolman (ed.),The Art of Italian Renaissance, Konemann, 1995, p. 244-246
^Cothren, Marilyn Stokstad Michael W. (2010).Art History Portable, Book 4 14th–17th Century Art (4th ed., Portable ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.ISBN978-0205790944.
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