Masaccio

Italian painter

• Born: December 21, 1401
• Birthplace: Castel San Giovanni, Republic of Florence (now San Giovanni Valdarno, Italy)
• Died: 1428
• Place of death: Rome, Papal States (now in Italy)

During a brief career, Masaccio became one of the major creators of the new Renaissance style of painting. His innovations utilizing perspective created a standard of realism admired and imitated by subsequent generations of artists.

Early Life

In contrast to the lives of such prominent Renaissance artists as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, little is known concerning the life of the Florentine painter Masaccio (mah-ZAHT-choh), who managed during his brief life to revolutionize the world of painting. He was born Tommaso di Giovanni di Simone Guidi in the small Tuscan town of Castel San Giovanni on Saint Thomas’s Day, December 21, 1401.

His grandfather had settled in San Giovanni in the 1380’s and established himself as a successful furniture maker. Masaccio’s parents, Giovanni di Mone Cassai and Monna Iacopa di Martinozzo, were only twenty and nineteen when their first son was born; they still lived with his grandfather. Masaccio was a nickname derived from Tommaso, meaning “hulking Tom” or “slovenly Tom.” In 1406, his parents had another son, Giovanni, who also became an artist and was nicknamed “Lo Scheggia,” meaning “the splinter” or “chip.” In the same year, Masaccio’s father died, and his mother soon remarried. Her second husband was an elderly pharmacist named Tedesco.

The next sixteen years of Masaccio’s life are essentially a mystery. Coming from a prosperous family of artisans, he no doubt enjoyed a comfortable childhood. The first specific records of him after 1406 date from January, 1422, when he enrolled in the Florentine guild of physicians and apothecaries, which then included artists in its membership. It remains uncertain under whom he trained, the old theory that he studied under the artist Masolino having been convincingly disproved. He possibly learned some basics about painting from one of the artisans who decorated the painted chests produced in his grandfather’s shop. It is also uncertain exactly when Masaccio left San Giovanni for the greater opportunities afforded by Florence. He may have studied there with the painter Mariotto di Cristofano, the husband of one of his stepsisters.

The Florence that became the adolescent Masaccio’s new home was then one of the most vibrant and important cities in Europe, on the threshold of its greatest century. One of the chief ways the city fathers expressed their pride in Florence’s increasing prominence was by commissioning painters, sculptors, and architects to produce works of art for the city. Masaccio arrived in Florence at exactly the time when monumental artistic projects were making the city the leading artistic center of Europe.

Though the identity of Masaccio’s teachers remains a mystery, his revolutionary style was undoubtedly influenced by three key individuals: Giotto, Florence’s greatest painter of the previous century; Donatello, the contemporary master sculptor; and Filippo Brunelleschi, the inventive architect and artist. By his early twenties, Masaccio had absorbed the simple dignity of Giotto’s composition and solid naturalism of Donatello’s sculptures and applied them to Brunelleschi’s new laws of linear perspective, so that he was ready to produce some of the most influential paintings and frescoes of the century.

Life’s Work

The young Florentine genius enjoyed an active career of less than a decade before his premature death. His earliest known work, a triptych discovered in the obscure Church of San Giovenale in the valley of the Valdarno in 1961, consisted of a Madonna and Child flanked by four saints, a very traditional subject. Already, however, Masaccio was showing signs of a new naturalism and inventiveness in this work. The Christ child was originally completely nude and depicted eating grapes, an iconographical innovation referring to the Eucharist. The triptych’s figures clearly mirrored those of Giotto a century earlier and showed a skilled use of foreshortening and light.

Another early work, dating from approximately 1423, was his Madonna and Child with Saint Anne and Angels , an altarpiece painted for the Church of Sant’Ambrogio in Florence. Evidently part of this work was painted by Masolino, although scholars disagree on the exact division of work between the two.

One of the few works of Masaccio that can be dated definitively is another altarpiece, a polyptych done for the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Pisa. The work was commissioned for a chapel, and Masaccio received eighty florins for his undertaking. The polyptych was dismantled in the eighteenth century and the various pieces scattered. Scholars have subsequently identified eleven of these, and they are now housed in museums in London, Berlin, Naples, Pisa, and Vienna. The only surviving description of the entire work is found in Giorgio Vasari’s history. For his centerpiece of the Pisa polyptych, Masaccio again painted the Madonna and Child. Surrounding them are four small angels, two of them playing lutes. Another key panel features a dramatic crucifixion scene notable for its rather bulky rendition of Christ and its moving Mary Magdalene. Surviving pieces from the work’s predella include a visitation by the Magi and scenes from the lives of various saints.

Works such as the Pisa altarpiece undoubtedly added to the growing reputation of the young painter. Contemporary records reveal little about the details of his life in Florence during this period. The number of known works he produced demonstrates that he was rarely without work and thus reasonably secure financially. Tax returns from July, 1427, indicate that he was living in a house rented for ten florins a year. His younger brother and widowed mother were living with him. He also rented part of a workshop for an additional two florins a year. Donatello and Brunelleschi were among his close friends. Writing more than a century after Masaccio’s death, Vasari characterized him as an affable, absent-minded individual unconcerned with worldly goods and careless about his dress.

By the mid-1420’, several key elements combined to produce Masaccio’s distinctive style. In obvious rebellion against the delicacy of the International Gothic favored by such successful contemporary Florentine artists as Gentile da Fabriano, Masaccio emphasized solid, monumental figures accompanied by somber and simple backgrounds. His careful study of the human form and the effect of light produced works of revolutionary realism. Although color was not unimportant to him, Masaccio was more clearly dedicated to form. His figures emerged as unique individuals rather than faceless stereotypes. Instead of the elaborate brocades habitually used in International Gothic, Masaccio’s biblical figures wore simple, heavy cloaks. Above all, the new laws of perspective enabled the young master to produce works that put his figures in believable space rather than having them float aimlessly against solid gold backgrounds.

The outstanding examples of Masaccio’s style are found in his frescoes located in the Brancacci Chapel in the Florentine Church of Santa Maria del Carmine. The exact date of his work there remains unclear, as does the name of the patron, although it was undoubtedly a member of the influential mercantile Brancacci family. Some of the chapel’s frescoes were the work of Masolino, who had earlier collaborated with the young artist on the altarpiece for the Church of Sant’Ambrogio. It remains uncertain whether the two worked together in the chapel or whether Masolino began the project and then abandoned it to Masaccio when he left for another commission in Hungary. The chapel remained unfinished at the time of Masaccio’s death and was completed only in the 1480’s by a third artist, Filippino Lippi.

Scholars generally attribute six of the major scenes and part of another to Masaccio. One of these includes The Expulsion from Paradise , a moving work showing Adam and Eve being driven from the Garden of Eden. The figures, depicted against a bleak landscape, almost resemble freestanding sculpture in the new tradition of Donatello. Masaccio’s masterful use of atmospheric perspective and emotional expression infuses the scene with drama.

The majority of Masaccio’s Brancacci chapel frescoes, though, depict various scenes from the life of Saint Peter, a rare iconographical theme in Florence during this period. By far the most famous of these, and generally regarded as his masterpiece, is The Tribute Money . Inspired by the biblical story found in Matthew 17:24-27, the fresco is a simultaneous narrative in three parts. In the center section, a tax collector confronts Christ and his apostles and demands tribute. On the left, Saint Peter obeys Christ’s injunction to cast forth his hook and take a coin out of the mouth of the first fish he catches; on the left, Saint Peter pays the tribute to the tax collector. This fresco was perhaps inspired by a new tax imposed by the Florentine government in 1427. Whatever the inspiration, the figures in The Tribute Money, as well as in Masaccio’s other frescoes in the chapel, exhibit a convincing realism and individuality.

Masaccio’s most unconventional fresco is located in the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. The famous Holy Trinity with the Virgin and Saint John , most commonly dated to 1425, again shows his creative genius. It depicts the Trinity within an architectural framework inspired by Brunelleschi, expertly creating an illusion of depth through the barrel vaulted ceiling. To accompany the Trinity, Masaccio painted figures of Mary and John and below them full-size portraits of the donor and his wife. Their identities remain uncertain although it is possible that they were members of the Lenzi family. For the first time, the donors are portrayed on the same scale as the divine figures, a significant innovation. Long covered by a sixteenth century altar, Holy Trinity with the Virgin and Saint John was not rediscovered until 1861. When it was cleaned in 1952, restorers discovered a skeleton painted below the donors. Such memento mori were rare in Florence’s artistic tradition.

In addition to the previously discussed works, Masaccio produced several others that have been destroyed. These included a “Consecration” fresco for the Carmine Cloisters in Pisa, a fresco of Saint Ives and his wards for Florence’s Church of the Badia in 1627, and a Saint Paul fresco for that city’s Church of the Carmine. Vasari mentions that Masaccio painted several portraits of eminent Florentines, but these remain lost or have not survived.

Sometime in 1428, the young artist abandoned work on the Brancacci Chapel and left Florence for Rome. The reason remains unclear, although it was possibly a response to a summons from his friend Masolino, who was then in the city. Before the end of the year, Masaccio died, so suddenly and unexpectedly that rumors spread that he had been poisoned. His friend Brunelleschi summarized the impact of the twenty-seven-year-old genius’s demise when he remarked that the art world had suffered a most grievous loss.

Significance

The paintings of Masaccio had an influence on the formation of the Renaissance style equal to the contemporary accomplishments in sculpture by Donatello and in architecture by Brunelleschi. The young Florentine was thus one of the three pivotal influences in establishing Florentine ascendancy in the art world during the fifteenth century, a most remarkable achievement considering the brevity of his career.

His handful of surviving frescoes inspired generations of painters who studied them for their masterful skill in making the human figure come alive. Such prominent artists as Fra Filippo Lippi, Sandro Botticelli, Andrea del Verrocchio, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael all found inspiration for aspects of their style in the work of Masaccio. All made the pilgrimage to the tiny Brancacci Chapel to study his masterly modeling of the human figure.

Influenced by the earlier works of Giotto, as well as by classical sculpture, Masaccio created a brilliant new standard for painting that effectively abandoned medieval two-dimensionality and instead explored the possibilities for realism provided by atmospheric and linear perspective. Masaccio’s figures emerged as real individuals, full of emotion and dignity. They symbolized the self-confidence of the Renaissance epoch dawning in Florence and served as models for countless later Renaissance works. The Brancacci Chapel frescoes established artistic standards that endured virtually unchallenged until the nineteenth century. Although the details of his life remain obscure and largely undocumented, Masaccio’s importance in art history remains firmly entrenched. Few other painters, if any, have managed to transform the course of painting so decisively in such a short time.

Bibliography

Ahl, Diane Cole, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Masaccio. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. A comprehensive look at Masaccio and his works as well as fifteenth century art in Florence. Bibliography and index.

Casazza, Ornella. Masaccio and the Brancacci Chapel. New York: Riverside Book Company, 1990. An examination of the Brancacci Chapel frescoes created by Masaccio. Bibliography and index.

Fremantle, Richard. Masaccio. New York: Smithmark, 1998. A catalog of the artist’s works along with criticism and interpretation. Illustrations and bibliography.

Goffen, Rona, ed. Masaccio’s Trinity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. A collection of essays on Masaccio’s portrayal of the Trinity that relates his work to the times in which it was produced and examines the techniques used. Index.

Guillaud, Maruice. Frescoes by Masaccio in the Brancacci Chapel: Along with the Frescoes by Masolino and Filippino Lippi. New York: Guillaud Edition, 1991. Examines the frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel done by Masaccio and those finished by Masolino and Filippino Lippi. Contains 44 leaves of plates, chiefly color.

Joannides, Paul. Masaccio and Masolino: A Complete Catalogue. New York: H. N. Abrams, 1993. A complete catalog of the works of Masaccio and Masolino. Contains illustrations, a bibliography, and index.

Strehike, Brandon, and Cecilia Frosinini, eds. The Panel Paintings of Masolino and Masaccio: The Role of Technique. Milan: Five Continents, 2002. An examination of panel paintings with an emphasis on the techniques employed by Masolino and Masaccio.

Vasari, Giorgio. The Lives of the Artists. Edited by William Gaunt. Reprint. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996. First published in 1550 and substantially expanded in 1568, Vasari’s collection of biographies of famous Renaissance architects, sculptors, and painters provides the earliest secondary information about the life and career of Masaccio. He established many historical traditions about Masaccio and described some of his works that have subsequently been destroyed or lost. Some of his statements have been disproved by modern art historians.