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 :. | Holy Trinity, | Holy Trinity | The Tribute Money | Verdrijving from the paradise | Fresco in the Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence |
Related Artists:
Francis Swaine
1720-1783,English painter and draughtsman. He worked as a messenger for a department of His Majesty's Navy in 1735 and seems to have been practising as a marine painter by the late 1740s, but there is little trace of his place in London's art world until his regular contributions from 1761 to the exhibitions of both the Free and Incorporated Societies of Artists. He was awarded the Society for the Encouragement of Arts' second prize for sea-pieces in 1764 and again in 1765. 'About the year 1770', reported Edwards, 'he painted the face of a wind-dial, with sea and ships, which he executed with a great neatness'
Konstantin Savitsky
Russian Painter, 1844-1905 was a Russian realist painter born in the city of Taganrog in the village Frankovka or Baronovka, named after former governor Otto Pfeilizer-Frank. Today this area is occupied by Taganrog Iron and Steel Factory TAGMET. Savitsky's family lived in the building of Taganrog Gymnasium for Boys, where his father worked as a doctor. In Frankovka the family rented a summer house. Savitsky spent his childhood and youth in Taganrog. He showed an interest for painting in the early childhood. Being on the shore of Azov Sea with his parents, he loved to make sketches, and drawing lessons at Gymnasium were his favourite subject. When Konstantin was fifth-grader at Taganrog Gymnasium, his teenager's life changed unexpectedly. Both of his parents died suddenly. Kostya was taken by his uncle who lived in present-day Latvia and became his guardian. There Savitsky entered a private boarding-school and in 1862 he graduated and left for Saint Petersburg, where entered The Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg. Personal contacts with outstanding representatives of Russian culture - Ilya Repin, Ivan Shishkin, Viktor Vasnetsov, Mark Antokolski, Stasov, Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin - made a great influence on development of the young artist. Soon Savitsky became one of the best students of the Imperial Academy of Arts. His student paintings were awarded with silver medals and for his painting "Cain and Abel"1871 he received a gold medal. House of Savitsky in Taganrog. TaganrogCity.ComAfter graduation from Imperial Academy of Arts and two years abroad, the artist becomes co-partner of mobile art exhibitions (Peredvizhniki, a group of Russian realist artists who in protest to academic restrictions formed an artists' cooperative, which evolved into the Society for Traveling Art Exhibitions in 1870. The artwork "Repairing Railway" was one of the first paintings of that time dedicated to life of the working class. Konstantin Savitsky is a co-author of the famous painting Morning in the Pine Forest. On the original Peredvizhniki exhibition the painting was shown by two authors Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitsky. It was assumed that Savitsky had painted the bears and Shishkin the forest but later the scholars found that preparational drawing of the pine forest were made by both Savitsky and Shishkin. Later Savitsky withdrew his signature from the painting and it is currently exponated as a sole Shishkin's work. The titles of his artworks as "Lost all their possessions in the fire", "To war", "Herdsmen", "Krutchnik",
Joseph Marie Vien
French Neoclassical Painter, 1716-1809 French painter, draughtsman and engraver. He was one of the earliest French painters to work in the Neo-classical style, and although his own work veered uncertainly between that style and the Baroque, Vien was a decisive influence on some of the foremost artists of the heroic phase of Neo-classicism, notably Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Fran?ois-Pierre Peyron, Joseph-Benost Suve and Jean-Baptiste Regnault, all of whom he taught. Both his wife, Marie-Therese Reboul (1738-1805), and Joseph-Marie Vien fils (1762-1848) were artists: Marie-Therese exhibited at the Salon in 1757-67