Italian Early Renaissance Painter, 1401-1428 was the first great painter of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance. His frescoes are the earliest monuments of Humanism, and introduce a plasticity previously unseen in figure painting. The name Masaccio is a humorous version of Tommaso, meaning "big", "fat", "clumsy" or "messy" Tom. The name was created to distinguish him from his principal collaborator, also called Tommaso, who came to be known as Masolino ("little/delicate Tom"). Despite his brief career, he had a profound influence on other artists. He was one of the first to use scientific perspective in his painting, employing techniques such as vanishing point in art for the first time. He also moved away from the Gothic style and elaborate ornamentation of artists like Gentile da Fabriano to a more natural mode that employed perspective for greater realism. Masaccio was born to Giovanni di Mone Cassa??i and Jacopa di Martinozzo in Castel San Giovanni di Altura, now San Giovanni Valdarno (now part of the province of Arezzo, Tuscany). His father was a notary and his mother the daughter of an innkeeper of Barberino di Mugello, a town a few miles south of Florence. His family name, Cassai, comes from the trade of his grandfather Simone and granduncle Lorenzo, who were carpenters - cabinet makers ("casse", hence "cassai"). His father died in 1406, when Tommaso was only five; in that year another brother was born, called Giovanni after the dead father. He also was to become a painter, with the nickname of "Scheggia" meaning "splinter". The mother was remarried to an elderly apothecary, Tedesco, who guaranteed Masaccio and his family a comfortable childhood.  Related Paintings of MASACCIO :. | The Tribute Money | The Baptism of the Neophytes | The Tribute Money, fresco in the Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence | Saint Paul | Holy Trinity |
Related Artists:
CLAEISSENS, Pieter the Younger
Flemish Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1500-1575
Giuseppe Bonito
Giuseppe Bonito (11 January 1707 - 9 May 1789) was a Neapolitan painter of the Rococo period. Giuseppe Bonito is known for genre depictions on canvas. Many of Gaspare Traversi's paintings had previously been attributed to Bonito. Bonito was born at Castellammare di Stabia, and, like Traversi, was a student at the large studio of Francesco Solimena. Bonito represented urban scenes with folklore details and figures of commedia dell'arte. Between the 1736 and 1742 Bonito it worked for the family Borboni in the royal palace of Portici. He also painted portraits including one of Maria Amalia di Sassonia, wife of the Charles VII, king of Naples.
Friedrich Johann Overbeck
1789-1869 German German religious painter. Expelled from the Vienna Academy because of his opposition to its classicism, he went to Rome and with Peter von Cornelius, Veit, Schadow-Godenhaus, and others, formed the group known as the Nazarenes. His first real successes were his frescoes for the Casa Bartholdy (now in Berlin) and for the Villa Massimo. Among his notable paintings are Christ Entry into Jerusalem and Christ Agony in the Garden. Overbeck sought to make his art serve religion. His influence was due more to the purity of his doctrine than to the power of his work, which is often lacking in pictorial appeal and in color.