The Man No One Remembers

Madonna and Child with St. Anne by Masaccio

His name is all but forgotten in the history of art. His paintings are not studied in art schools. His contributions to our present world are but an ancient memory. But it was Masaccio, the youngest of all painters who, by breathing life into the art of his day, worked the miracle of awakening in painting an urgency it never had before.

Masaccio (1401-1428) was attracted to things of art from a very young age. Beginning in childhood, living in Tuscany, he was able to refine his innate artistic and pictorial sensibility.

But it was Florence that influenced and shaped Masaccio's artistic personality. In fact, thanks to the work of Brunelleschi and Donatello, in the early years of the 15th century, there was already an artistic and cultural revolution in progress in Florence where Masaccio moved at the age of 16. This changed much of the way architectural and sculptural arts were realized. Masaccio chose these two important artists as his reference points because of the artisitic affinity he shared with them. These two great artists were later to become his great friends and admirers.

It was in Florence that Masaccio's extraordinary personality exploded into his most important works, especially the frescoes of the Cappella Brancacci. These works are now considered to be the true beginning of Renaissance painting. In these paintings Masaccio concentrated the basis of his naturalistic revolution: space seen through the laws of perspective, light and shade to bring bodies into relief, and deep emotional sensitivity.

Masaccio knew nothing of business and was a lonely, unhappy man, always in debt. He suddenly left Florence and died of grief, in Rome. Legend has it that he was poisoned by a jealous, rival painter.

Just paint it!