Painter
Masaccio was born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Mone
and nicknamed 'Masaccio' (Hulking Tom). He was the first and arguably the
greatest of the succession of great masters in 15th-century Florence; certainly
the greatest in that he achieved so much in a lifetime of twenty-seven years.
He is first recorded as a painter in 1422, when he entered the Guild in Florence,
which disproves the tradition that he was Masolino's pupil, since Masolino
did not register with the Guild (and therefore could not take pupils) until 1423.
An altarpiece of 1422 may prove important in this connection, but the attribution
to Masaccio is still under discussion. (It comes from S. Giovenale, near Florence,
and is now in the Uffizi.) The first major work
by Masaccio for which
documentary evidence exists is the Pisa Polyptych, painted for the Carmelite
Church in Pisa in 1426, but now dismembered and largely lost. According to
a recent conjectural reconstruction it may have been the first sacra conversazione
of a unified type. The central panel, of the Madonna and Child, is now in the
NG, London, and shows that, at the age of twenty-five,
Masaccio
had already
developed his austere and heroic style in opposition to the International
Gothic then being so successfully practised in Florence by Gentile
da Fabriano.
This new style, in its realism, sobriety of gesture, narrative power, and the
economy with which it creates its effects of space, light and solidity of form,
is akin to Giotto's, and is comparable among contemporaries only with the
humanist and intellectual art then being developed by the much older Donatello
in sculpture and Brunelleschi in architecture. For this reason Masaccio
has always been regarded as one of the founders of modern painting.
Between
the end of 1425 and his death, probably at the end of 1428, Masaccio certainly
painted a fresco of the Trinity in S.M. Novella, Florence, and his major surviving
work, the frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel of the Carmelite Church in Florence
(S.M. del Carmine). The Chapel was decorated with scenes from the Acts of
the Apostles, and may have been begun by Masolino in 1425, but a large part
of the frescoes, including the earlier ones, perished in the 18th century. Those
that survive are by three hands — a 15th-century source says that the Chapel
was 'painted by three masters, all good but he (Masaccio) was marvellous' -
and the puzzle is to sort out the shares. The parts by Filippino Lippo are half
a century later and fairly easily distinguishable; approximate agreement has now
been reached over the remainder, it being generally accepted that the Expulsion
on the entrance arch, the Tribute Money, parts of the Raising of the Praetor's Son
and all of St Peter Enthroned, St Peter's Shadow Healing the Sick, St Peter Giving
Alms, are by Masaccio, while the Baptism of the Neophytes is probably
by him,
but is sometimes contested. The remainder of the original commission is by
Masolino. Again, Masaccio's style is fully realistic and uncompromisingly grand,
which probably explains why these frescoes long served as an art school without
enjoying general popularity. Indeed, much of later 15th-century painting flatly
contradicts the principles enunciated in the Brancacci Chapel. Parts of the
frescoes may still have been incomplete when Masaccio went to Rome and
died there.
The remaining parts of the Pisa Polyptych are in Malibu Cal.
(Getty), Naples, Pisa and Berlin. Other works by or attributed to him are in
Berlin, Boston (Gardner Mus.), Florence (Uffizi, Home Mus.), London (NG)
and Washington (NG).
Source: The Penguin Dictionary of Art and Artists (Penguin Reference Books)
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