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 :. | St Paul sgy | Virgin and Child with Saint Anne | The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden | Profile Portrait of a Young Man wg | The Tribute Money, fresco in the Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence |
Related Artists:
Benedetto Luti
Benedetto Luti (17 November 1666 - 17 June 1724) was an Italian painter. Luti was born in Florence. He moved to Rome in 1691 where he was patronized by Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, an enthusiast for the pastel portrait. Luti was one of the first artists to work in pastels as the final composition as opposed to initial studies for paintings or frescoes. He also worked in oils and painted frescoes for the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano. Luti was also a successful art dealer and ran a school of drawing; among his pupils were Giovanni Domenico Piastrini, Giovanni Paolo Panini, Claude Arnulphy, Jean-Baptiste van Loo, William Kent.
Leon Spilliaert
Belgian 1881-1946 Leon Spilliaert (1881 ?C 1946) was a Belgian symbolist painter and graphic artist. Spilliaert was born in Ostend and from childhood displayed an interest in art and drawing. A prolific doodler and autodidact, he was predominantly a self taught artist. Sickly and reclusive, he spent most of his youth sketching scenes of ordinary life and the Belgian countryside. When he was 21 he went to work in Brussels for Edmond Demon, a publisher of the works of symbolist writers, which Spilliaert was to illustrate. He especially admired the work of Edgar Allan Poe. Watercolor, gouache, and charcoal were the means by which he produced much of his best work, including a number of self-portraits executed in black crayon in the early years of the twentieth century. A significant influence on Spilliaert was Odilon Redon, whose expressive use of black finds parallels in his own work. Frequently depicting a lone figure in a dreamlike space, Spilliaert's paintings convey a sense of melancholy and silence. His later work shows a concentration on seascapes. He died in 1946 in Brussels.
Hans Heysen
Sir Hans Heysen, OBE (8 October 1877 - 2 July 1968) was a well-known German Australian artist. He was particularly recognized for his watercolours of the Australian bush. He won the Wynne Prize for landscape painting a record nine times.