Masaccio [antikvár]

" He was a very absent-minded and careless person, like one who has concentrated all his heart and will on art alone, and thinks little of himself or others. And he did not wish to concern himself with worldly matters, not even dress, and did not make a practice of recovering money from his debtors, except when in great need, instead of Thomas (which was his name), he was called Masaccio (clumsy Thomas) by everybody: not because he was a person of bad habits, being naturally good, but because of his extreme carelessness; in spite of this he was very affectionate and rendered services and favours to others, so that none could wish for more." This was written by Vasari in the Life of Masaccio. He was born on December 21st 1401 at San Giovanni Valdarno and soon moved to Florence (1417) where he was already known as a painter in 1419. In 1421 his brother, nicknamed Lo Scheggia, was in the modern and flourishing workshop of Bicci di Lorenzo in Florence, where Masaccio is also believed to have worked. His sister married the painter Mari-otto di Cristofano, who was also from San Giovanni Valdarno but lived in Florence. Here too was Masoli-no, another native of the Valdarno transferred to Florence, where he was highly esteemed chiefly by the Florentine aristocracy and artistic circles: he was already back from a trip to Hungary (Procacci) where he had gone with Pippo Spano. In the Bremen Madonna of 1423 he is as up-to-date and refined as Gentile da Fabriano and has captured something of the best spirit of the early Ghiberti (Berti) whom he had helped with the north door of the Baptistry. Although acting within the complicated late Gothic representation which was not in contrast with the classicist innovations, Masaccio was above all involved in the humanistic avant-garde of Brunelleschi and Donatello. The tendency of both to exalt human value in every way and to restore dignity to the vulgar tongue is already evident in his first known painting: the San Giouenale Triptych, dated 23rd April 1422.