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 :. | Madonna and Child | Trinity | San Giovenale Triptych | St Jerome and St John the Baptist | San Giovenale Triptych |
Related Artists:
Cosimo Tura
1430-95 Italian Cosimo Tura Galleries Cosimo Tura (c. 1430 ?C 1495), also known as Il Cosm?? or Cosme Tura, was an Italian early-Renaissance (or Quattrocento) painter and considered one of the founders of the School of Ferrara. Born in Ferrara, he was a student of Francesco Squarcione of Padua. Later he obtained patronage from both Dukes Borso and Ercole I d'Este. By 1460, he was stipended by the Ferrarese Court. His pupils include Francesco del Cossa and Francesco Bianchi. He appears influenced by Mantegna's and Piero della Francesca's quattrocento styles. In Ferrara, he is well represented by frescoes in the Palazzo Schifanoia (1469?C71) . This pleasure palace, with facade and architecture of little note, belonged to the d'Este family and is located just outside the medieval town walls. Cosimo, along with Francesco del Cossa, helped produce an intricately conceived allegorical series about the months of the year and zodiac symbols. The series contains contemporary portraits of musicians, laborers, and carnival floats in idyllic parades. As in Piero della Francesca's world, the unemotive figures mill in classical serenity. He also painted the organ doors for the Duomo showing the Annunciation (1469). He collaborated in the painting of a series of "muses" for a studiolo of Leonello d'Este, including the allegorical figure of Calliope at the National Gallery (see image). While the individual attributions are often debated, among the artists thought to complete the Angelo di Pietro da Sienna, also called Maccagino or Angelo Parrasio, and Michele Pannonio.
Johann Gottfried Schadow
1764-1850 Berlin, He was a German sculptor. He was born in Berlin, where his father was a poor tailor. Friederike von Preuben.His first teacher was an inferior sculptor, Tassaert, patronized by Frederick the Great; the master offered his daughter in marriage, but the pupil preferred to elope with a girl to Vienna, and the father-in-law not only condoned the offence but furnished money wherewith to visit Italy. Three years' study in Rome formed his style, and in 1788 he returned to Berlin to succeed Tassaert as sculptor to the court and secretary to the Academy. Over half a century he produced upwards of two hundred works, varied in style as in subjects.
Rupert Bunny
Australian Painter, 1864-1947 Australian painter. After studying in Melbourne under G. F. Folingsby (d 1891), he moved to Europe in 1884 and studied in London under P. H. Calderon and in Paris under Jean-Paul Laurens, who introduced him to the Societe des Artistes Francais in 1887. His early works consisted mainly of mythological subjects and graceful images of pleasant Symbolist landscapes; he defected to the New Salon in 1901 and produced some less decorative works, including images of biblical subjects. A long series of paintings of women followed, but his style again changed abruptly when in 1913 he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne a series of images of dancers, The Rite, that shows the influence of Primitivism. Although not attracted to the avant-garde, Bunny showed an adventurous spirit in his unusual sense of colour, sense of rhythm and witty use of his subjects' poses. He continued to live in Paris and London until 1933.