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 :. | San Giovenale Triptych | Frescoes in the Cappella Brancacci | Tribute money | St.Anne Metterza | Madonna and Child with St. Anne |
Related Artists:
David Octavius Hill
Scottish Painter and Photographer, 1802-1870 was a founding member of the Royal Scottish Academy and its secretary for 40 years. In 1843 he enlisted the help of Robert Adamson (b. 1821, Berunside, Scot. January 1848, St. Andrews), a chemist experienced in photography, in photographing the delegates to the founding convention of the Free Church of Scotland. They used the calotype process, by which an image was developed from a paper negative. In these and other portraits they demonstrated a masterly sense of form and composition and a dramatic use of light and shade. Their five-year partnership resulted in some 3,000 photographs, including many views of Edinburgh and small fishing villages.
Robert Walter Weir
Jun 18.1803-May 1.1889, Painter and teacher. By his own account he was self-taught, with the exception of a few lessons from an unknown heraldic painter named Robert Cooke. However, after exhibiting a few works that were praised by the local press, he was sent to Italy by a group of New York and Philadelphia businessmen for further studies. There he trained with Florentine history painter Pietro Benvenuti. After three years in Europe (1824-7), he returned to New York, where he quickly became a mainstay of the artistic community. In 1831 he was elected to membership in the National Academy of Design in New York, and three years later he was made instructor of drawing at the US Military Academy in West Point, New York, a post he held for the next 42 years.
michele di matteo lambertini
active in Bologna 1416-1469