The Life of Tommaso Masaccio

Art in the early Renaissance began with artists such as Giotto, who was credited with beginning a new style of art that Masaccio had taken up and integrated into his art later in the Renaissance. This specific style, being the use of massive figures, relation of background/landscapes to figures, and visual representation of perspective, was utilized by Masaccio in his frescoes in the Brancacci chapel. Masaccio’s Tribute Money is showing a biblical tale ,as the renaissance was not entirely anti religion, but with subjects that are being made to look realistic through a use of perspective (vanishing point, horizon line, etc,) and it is said that Masaccio's work was said to be “ living, natural, and real”. Artists such as Uccello took this style and adapted it to also make his art more realistic by using figures to show the laws of perspective, while others like Pollaiuolo

Created in 1489 this masterpiece is made out of pure marble. This sculpture is located in the Vatican City. At first glance this sculpture looks like child dead in a mother's arms, which is correct but there is more too it. The sculpture represents the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Its shows his mother Mary holding him and he lays there dead. A very little detail that usually goes unnoticed is that Mary is not touching her son directly, but a cloth is between the two. This signifies the Higher Renaissance belief in Neoplatonic, that the beauty on earth signifies God's beauty. This masterpiece is not only amazing by the meaning but the glorious detail that Michelangelo was able to go into with practically a hammer and chisel.

There are many great artist during the Renaissance some of them were Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo. The main artist were Leonardo Da Vinci, and Michelangelo, But the most significant of them all was Donatello. Donatello was the greatest artist because of a lot of variables one of them is having the best variety of skill. In the Donatello DBQ it states “A student of the classics and a master craftsman Donatello was considered one of the founders of sculpting.” This demonstrates that Donatello had more than one skill and he can use his knowledge of all his skills and make them work together.

Masaccio from the Early Italian Renaissance was a master in perspective and imitator of nature. He introduced in his compositions, many attitudes and movements which had never been painted before. Masaccio was able to make his figures to look naturalistic through skin tone of the figures, painting it as its true nature. He utilize natural use of light and shadows then lines which allowed him to create the illusion of mass and volume. Masaccio was able to achieve great foreshortening in nude figures by using few and simply details.

I believe that Leonardo da Vinci was the most significant renaissance artist out of the four main artist. These artists are Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci. He was the most significant artist because he brought very important inventions and beautiful paintings to the world. Most of Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings even showed individualism.

Another technique that was developed was perspective. Perspective was formed with the creation of the vanishing point to make paintings more realistic. Masaccio was one of the great painters of his time because of his skill of recreating lifelike figures and movement, along with portraying a sense of three-dimensionality. One of Masaccio’s greatest paintings is the Holy Trinity which was painted in 1427. This painting has a great use of perspective and chiaroscuro to show realism. Chiaroscuro was another technique that was formed to show light and dark intensities to give the impression of depth and texture as well as a source of light. With the use of different shades of colour, sfumato was a new technique that emerged during this time that produces soft, imperceptible transitions between colours and tones to show blending and oneness. These techniques established a basis of modern art. These techniques are still used till this day and have shaped the way art is currently produced.

Pablo Picasso, although usually known as just Picasso. His full name though is actually: Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso. His signature is worth more than some of his paintings. In fact in some restaurants he just drew a quick face and then signed it (when he was famous). He was one of the most well known people in the 20th century. He was born in 25th of October 1881 in Malaga, Spain, and then died on the 8th of April 1973 Mougins, France. He was a: painter, drawing, sculpture, print making, and ceramics.

Raphael was one of the most important artists of the Italian Renaissance. Raphael painted and designed many brilliant pieces of work and the stanzas inside the Vatican. He was a master at such necessities of modern art such as depth and perspective and the use of light and shadow, and was the turning point styles of paintings like the use of Madonnas in paintings. Through his short life, Raphael would make some of the most awe-inspiring, beautiful, and influential works of art during the Italian Renaissance.

Masaccio was a Florentine artist who is known to be the first great Italian painter of the of the fifteenth century which was a major period of the Early Renaissance. Masaccio was known as an exceptional painter based on his artistic skills. Some of these skills include being able to accurately replicate nature, representing lifelike figures and movements, as well as creating a sense of three dimensionality in his art pieces. Originally, International Gothic was his style, however he moved away from that and merged into more of a naturalistic approach by using different perspectives and effective light and shade; this helped him in emphasizing his new style of realism. As one of the first artists to use linear perspective in his paintings,

Perspective plays an important role in understanding Masaccio’s frescos. Masaccio was born in 1401 and died unfortunately young in 1428. His full birth name is Tommasio di Ser Giovanni de Simone. He made a great contribution to Italian and Florentine art during the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance. He worked alongside Filippo Brunelleschi an Italian architect and engineer. Together they created the idea of linear perspective with the influence of earlier artists such as Lorenzetti, Duccio and Giotto brothers. Linear perspective helps to form the impression of a three-dimensional space on a completely flat surface. This essay will compare ‘The Holy Trinity’ (fig. 1) by Masaccio and Raphael’s ‘The School of Athens’ (fig. 2). Both Masaccio and Raphael use linear perspective in their paintings to create a sense of depth and realism.

Andrea de Pozzo, born in 1642 in Trento, Italy, was a famous Italian Jesuit painter, architect, stage designer, and art theoretician of the late seventeenth century. Pozzo specialized in ‘quadratura’and ‘di sotto in su’ techniques; a system of perspective where the focal lines start from the corner and meet each other at the center of the piece. At the age of 17, his father sent him for artistic training under Palma il Giovane. In 1662, he trained under an unrecognized painter from the workshop of Andrea Sacchi, who taught him the techniques of Roman Baroque art. As devoted Pozzo was to his art, he was just as devoted to the church. In 1675, he designed frescos for the church of San Francisco Saverio in Mondovi. Some of his contribution to the church also included ceiling paintings. Pozzo established a strong reputation ceiling he painted in the Church of St. Ignazio which was known as the Glorification of Saint Ignatius (or Nave Fresco).

Every painting is a unique experience for each individual person, therefore two of the artists that offered some of the most unique experiences where Leonardo da vinci and Michelangelo. While both of these painters are today well regarded and remembered, during their time they both had achieved such status in vastly different ways. Therefore even though these two artists lived during the same time these two are nothing alike. With their unique take on the world and events around them they were able to shape how the average person thought about the world around them.

In the case of perhaps the most famous painter in history, Leonardo Da Vinci was considered the greatest Renaissance artist. Leonardo was most known for his extremely complex and concise calculations used for art, along with his great care in the detail of paintings and

The Renaissance was a period of cultural movement and the introduction of cultural heroes, is known as “Renaissance Men”. One of these men was Michelangelo Buenarroti. Michelangelo was a world-wide known painter, sculptor, architect, and poet, who was of great Importance and had a great impact on our modern day culture.

Many of Masaccio’s most famous works were done in the medium of fresco. This is a possible explanation for why he was not a popular and celebrated artist during his time. Many people were not able to acquire his work. Diane Ahl of the college of Lafayette stated: