Ruonan Hao 1143752

MASACCIO (1401-1428?)

Masaccio was the first great painter of the Italian Renaissance and opened up the modern era in

painting. He was born in 1401 in a small town outside of Florence called Castel San Giovanni de

Altura. He moved to Florence in around 1420 and by the age of 19 or 20 he was already a

professional painter belonged to the guild. He introduced many new techniques and innovate the

use of scientific perspective, which he painted from every angle. He also believed that the best

painters should follow nature as closely as possible. Supporting this notion, he kept learning from

his endless studies and his paintings were so natural, realistic and life-like.

Masaccio was strongly influenced by the architect Filippo and the sculptor Donatello, his

contemporaries in Florence, and followed their steps as far as posible. From Filippo Brunelleschi he

learnt the knowledge of mathematical proportion that was so important to his studies of scientific

perspective. From Donatello he learnt the knowledge of classical art that led him away from the

fading Gothic tradition. The way he paint was more about simplicity and unity than about details

and decorations, more about the illusion of three dimensionality than about flat surfaces. His

innovation made his painting look almost as close as nature. In his paintings we could see that he

depicted the draperies with just a few simple folds just as what they looked like in life.

Masaccio was so talented in using light and expressing atmosphere, and he was a true master at

forming groups. As Vasari wrote in his book, “His paintings were remarkably soft and harmonious,

and he matched the flesh-tints of his heads and nudes with the colors of his draperies. He always

tried to express in his figures the liveliness and his beautiful animation of nature itself. Additionally,

his outlines and his paintings were so morden and original that his works can be compared with

modern works for their design and coloring.” He painted a series of frescoes for the Brancacci

Chapel in about 1427. In these frescoes he used light to define the human body and draperies. He
painted with an only source of light and depicted realistic contrasts of light and shade which was so

different from the contemporary techniques. The way he painted gave a natural and realistic quality

which was unknown in the art that was produced in his day. Masaccio also found that depicting

every figures as if it was standing on tiptoe was so incorrect. Then he developed linear perspective

to present three-dimensional images in his paintings. His painting Trinity was considered the first

spatially-correct painting in Western Art.

The Gothic style of painting which was the main trend in much of Europe focused only on

religious characters and portrayed them in a totally symbolic manner. The Renaissance was a time

to get rid of abstraction and revive the nature and that was what Masaccio did. His usage of

perspective and softer colors brought the religious theme into reality. All his innovations forcefully

influenced the later artists, and indeed Masaccio changed the painting world forever and create a

movement that would lead the successors and spark the Renaissance in just seven years.

PAOLO UCCELLO (1397-1475)

Paolo Uccello was a Florentine painter and a mathematician who was known for his passion of

perspective in art. Giorgio Vasari in his book Lives of the Artists wrote that Uccello was fascinated

by the new science of perspective and would stay up all night in his study trying to work out the

exact vanishing point of his perspective. He tried to use perspective to create a feeling of depth in

his paintings and not, as his contemporaries such as Masaccio, to correct the figures. He worked

uniquely on the late Gothic and the new heroic style of the early Renaissance, and emphasized color

and pageantry rather than the Classical realism that other artists were working. His style is best

described as idiosyncratic, and he left no school of followers. His studies about perspective

influenced the Renaissance artists such as Piero della Francesca, Leonardo da Vinci, and Albrecht
Dürer. His most well known works were the three paintings representing the battle of San Romano.

The Flood clearly demonstrated his careful and delicate perspective studies.

Uccello's real name was Paolo di Dono, but he changed his name to Uccello which means bird in

Italian, because of his love for birds and other animals as well. In order to do them perfectly, he did

a lot of studies and kept his house full of pictures of different animals. He worked so hard that he

rarely gave himself a minute to relax. The birds he painted was so delicate and realistic and the

countless creations of animals showed how patient and imaginative he was. He loved using the

forms and movement of humans and animals in his paintings. His paintings were very famous for

improbable tangles of horses, riders, lances and pennants, helmets and bits of landscape.

Vasari said that the sacrifice of Noah was overwhelming superior to everything else that Uccello

did for its softness and grace. In this painting, he painted the open ark and the various birds in

perspective. He also depicted Noah surrounding by countless beautifully painted animals. The most

difficult and powerful figure he did was the God which appeared above the sacrifice, for it is flying

towards the wall with the head foreshortened.

The work he did was challenging and attractive. However, he wasted to much time in exploring

the difficult problems of perspective. I highly agree with what Vasari wrote in his book that “it is

undeniable that anyone who does violence to his nature by fanatical studies may polish on facet of

his genius but cannot produce work with the facility and grace associated with artists who can put

each stroke in its place temperately and with a clam and judicious intelligence”. His close friend,

Donatello often said that he wasted too much time on perspective. Compared with Uccello,

Masaccio was much cleverer because he concerned more with simplicity and unity than with

details. Because he paid too much attention on perspective, sometimes he ignored the basic rules of

painting, such as the consistency in coloring. In the work he did in the cloister of San Miniato, he

painted the fields blue, the cities red, and the buildings in various colors he preferred.
 Paolo Uccello's impact on people was the perspective he used in his paintings. “He discovered a

method to stand the figures firmly on the plane of the floor while foreshortening them bit by bit, and

making them recede and diminish in proportion. He also discovered the way to turn the

intersections and arches of vaulted roofs, to foreshorten floors by converging the beams.” Also an

impact of his was his use of colors and the fantastic effects in his paintings. He had some influence

on twentieth-century art and literary criticism as well.

DONATELLO (1386 - 1466)

Donatello was the first generation of early Italian Renaissance artists. He was also the most

famous and the most influential15th century sculptor who highly respected classical art and

borrowed from it. Like Masaccio, he was one of the earliest artists working with the idea of

perspective. He used the corresponding composition methods founded by the ancient Greeks to

make sculptures and in his lifetime he created a lot of vivid and dignified sculptures which were

considered nearer the ancient Greeks’ and Roman’s work than the other’s.

Different from many of his contemporaries, Donatello did not learn his craft when he was a

child. At his early years, Donatello was influenced mostly by sculptures he had seen. The life-sized

marble David, one of his earliest works, showed people a teenager’s body which was full of young

energy. This sculpture was so dramatic that it was set up the Palazzo Vecchio as a symbol of the

republic. Because he was apprenticed to Lorenzo Ghiberti, this early sculpture also had the feeling

of the late Gothic. However, this work was still a milestone for its naturalism and the expression of

human feelings. Although the face, the shoulders and the bust were still late Gothic style, the hands

and the draperies over the legs were more realistic. Works he did after the marble David, such as St.

Mark and St. John, which catapulted the artist to fame, showed clearly that he moved away from the

Gothic style to a more classical style.

 As time goes by, Donatello’s style became much more dramatic and emotional. He drew a lot

from real life and sought for inspiration in order to accurately reproduce suffering, angry, joy and

many other emotions.The famous St. George, carved in marble around 1416 and 1417 for the

Armourers Guild showed his new style. Which was highly praised was the little marble relief St.

George and the Dragon carved on the statue’s base. This is more significant, for the relief is one of

the earliest examples in sculpture of the central-point perspective. Additionally, this is also his first

attempt to produce a three-dimensional effect on a flat surface. He later invented and perfected this

technique called shallow relief which caused a great stir in the art world. Donatello's style in relief

sculpture reached its height in the bronze Feast of Herod for his use of perspective.

Donatello's most famous work was the bronze David which demonstrated his understanding of

classical art. It was the first major work of Renaissance sculpture because it was the first

unsupportable, life-size and nude statue since ancient times. As Vasari described, “ This figure is so

natural in its vivacity and softness that artists find it hardly possible to believe it was not moulded

on the living form.”

Donatello is more like a innovator than a sculptor. His work inspired his contemporary artists

and successors such as Masaccio, Botticelli, Andrea Mantegna and even Michelangelo. Even today,

his artist techniques still inspired a lot of artists. His work was seen as a bridge from classic to

modern art. His creation of realistic human expressions and life-like figures won him highly praise

and indeed he was one of the founders of the modern sculptures. After his death, with the numerous

works he left behind, his students and followers went on to build on his style and lead the art world

into the High Renaissance era.