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 :. | Trinity | Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise | When it was cleaned | Madonna and Child with St. Anne s | The Baptism of the Neophytes |
Related Artists:
Pericles Pantazis
(Athens, 1849-1884) was a major Greek impressionist painter of the 19th century that gained a great reputation as an artist initially in Belgium. Pantazis studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts from 1861 to 1871 with Nikiforos Lytras as his teacher. He continued for one year his studies in Munich and he then left for Marseille and Paris.In Paris he was taught by Gustave Courbet and Antoine Chintreuil. At this period he was introduced to the works of Eugene Boudin, Johan Barthold Jongkind and of the impressionists Manet, Camille Pissarro and Degas. In 1873, with a reference letter from Manet, he moved to Brussels in Belgium. A notable Greek wine businessman Jean Économou was particularly interested in his skills and commissioned a large number of Pantazis paintings. In Belgium, Pantazis became a member of an anti-academic artistic group called Circle de la pâte (meaning the circle of colour), and a member of Les XX. He became close friends with painter Guillaume Vogels and sculptor Auguste Philippette whose sister he married few years later. In Brussels, initially he worked as a home decorator for Guillaume Vogels but later he was dedicated to painting as he became increasingly known for his talent. In 1878 he represented Greece at the International Art Biennalle of Paris. He died before he turned 35 years old from chronic tuberculosis.
BURGKMAIR, Hans
German Northern Renaissance Painter, 1473-1531 German artist, famous for his paintings and woodcuts. A friend of D??rer, he studied in Strasburg and Venice, as well as Augsburg. He executed the woodcuts for Weißkunig and some of those in Teuerdank. His greatest works are the altar-pieces in Munich and Augsburg.
Phillips, Ammi
American Folk Artist, 1788-1865 American painter. Apparently self-taught, he began his prolific and successful career as a portrait painter c. 1811. During his lifetime, he moved several times across the borders of New York, western Connecticut and Massachusetts in search of commissions. Like many of the itinerant artists of the 19th century, he struggled to achieve pictorial solutions and a distinctive style, yet he developed so dramatically that historians originally classified his paintings as the work of two different artists: 'The Border Limner' and 'The Kent Limner'. The earliest works, from his 'Border' period (c. 1812-19), are marked by simple forms, shaded outlines and soft, pastel colours. They include ambitious full-length portraits as well as three-quarter and bust-length examples (Dr Russell Dorr, c. 1814-15; Williamsburg, VA, Rockefeller Flk A. Col.). In the 1820s he experimented with techniques and formats, developing an attention to detail and naturalism that suggests the influence of Albany portrait painter Ezra Ames. By the 1830s, the decade of his 'Kent' portraits, his compositions present his sitters as large, stylized shapes that nearly fill the canvas, while his use of rich, saturated colours creates striking contrasts of light and dark. Typically in this decade, his female sitters are shown leaning forward while male sitters sit upright with one hand draped over a chairback. Among his most appealing and successful works are portraits of children from this period. Blond Boy with Primer,