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 | The Tribute Money, fresco in the Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence | The Tribute Money (mk08) | Adoration of the Magi | The Virgin and Child |
Related Artists:
Robert Breyer
German, 1866-1941
Trophime Bigot
Trophime Bigot (1579-1649/50), also known as Theophile Bigot, Teofili Trufemondi, Candlelight Master, Maître e la Chandelle, was a French painter of the Baroque era, active in Rome and his native Provence. Bigot was born in Arles in 1579, where he began his artistic career. Between 1620 and 1634, Bigot was in Italy, including Rome. He is known to have been in Arles in 1634, where he painted the altarpiece Saint Laurent condamne au supplice (Saint Laurence Condemned to Torture) and Assomption de la Vierge (Assumption of the Virgin) for local churches. Between 1638 and 1642, he lived in Aix-en-Provence, where he painted another Assumption of the Virgin. He returned to Arles in 1642, and divided his activities between this city and Avignon, where he died around 1650.
PIENEMAN, Jan Willem.
b. 1779, Abcoude, d. 1853, Amsterdam,Painter, teacher, engraver and museum director. He trained with a wallpaper painter in Amsterdam, and at the same time he followed courses at the Amsterdam Stadstekenacademie, where he soon distinguished himself. His artistic and didactic gifts were recognized by the Napoleonic government, which in 1805 appointed him professor of drawing at the artillery and engineering school in Amersfoort. In 1816 he was appointed assistant director of the Mauritshuis at The Hague by William I. He frequently spent time at the Dutch court, where he gave painting lessons to Queen Wilhelmina and painted many portraits of members of the royal family. He also produced a few engravings.