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 (mk08) | Frescoes in the Cappella Brancacci | Plate of Nativity (Berlin Tondo) sg | Tribute Money | Resurrection of the Son of Theophilus |
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JOOS van Wassenhove
Dutch painter (active c.1460-80). South Netherlandish painter, active also in Italy. First documented in 1460, when he matriculated in the Antwerp painters' guild, he subsequently moved to Ghent, entering the painters' guild on 6 October 1464. In 1467 he painted 40 escutcheons with the papal arms for the cathedral of St Bavo, Ghent, his only documented commission in the Netherlands. He sponsored the entry of Hugo van der Goes to the Ghent guild on 5 May 1467 and of Sanders Bening on 19 January 1469, the last date on which Joos is recorded at Ghent. He is stated, in a document of 1475, to have departed for Rome some time previously, with an advance of money from Hugo van der Goes. It is not known if Joos reached Rome, but it is generally accepted that he worked at Urbino, where early sources mention a Netherlandish painter, Giusto da Guanto (Justus of Ghent), who was responsible for the altarpiece of the Communion of the Apostles (Urbino, Pal. Ducale) of 1473-4.
Nebbia, Cesare
Italian, 1536-1614 Italian painter and draughtsman. He was a pupil of GIROLAMO MUZIANO and much influenced by Federico Zuccaro, and Vasari cited him as a promising painter. Between 1562 and 1575 Nebbia was continuously employed in Orvieto, producing altarpieces and frescoes in the cathedral, for example the Marriage at Cana (1569), the Crucifixion (1574) and the Crowning with Thorns (1575; all Orvieto, Mus. Opera Duomo). In Rome, where from 1579 his name appeared in the register of the Accademia di S Luca, he executed an Ecce homo and another Crowning with Thorns (1576; oratory of the Gonfalone), a Noli me tangere (1579; S Maria degli Angeli), decorations in the Sforza Chapel, S Maria Maggiore (1582), Heraclius Taking the Cross (1582-4; Santissimo Crocifisso), the Martyrdom of St Lawrence (1589; S Susanna) and decorations in the Borghese Chapel, Trinit? dei Monti (c. 1590). Under Pope Sixtus V he was responsible, with Giovanni Guerra, for the decorations in the Sistine Library, and he also worked on the Scala Santa, in the Vatican Palace and in the Lateran Palace. In 1597 he was principal of the Accademia di S Luca. Two years later he received payment for the cartoons of St Matthew and St Mark for the mosaics in the cupola of St Peter's. The following year he painted the Dream of Constantine (S Giovanni in Laterano). In 1603-4 he decorated, with Zuccaro, the hall in the Collegio Borromeo, Pavia. He retired to Orvieto in 1609.
Herring, John F. Sr.
British, 1795-1865