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 | St Peter distributes the Goods of the Community and The Death of Ananias | San Giovenale Triptych | St Peter Healing the Sick with his Shadow | Virgin and Child |
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SCHEDONI, Bartolomeo
Italian painter, Emilian school (b. 1578, Modena, d. 1615, Parma) Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the son of Giulio Schedoni, a mask-maker, who served the Este court in Modena and the Farnese in Parma; in 1598 Schedoni and his father are recorded as residing in Parma, both serving the court. In 1595 Ranuccio I, Duke of Parma, sent Bartolomeo to Rome, to train in the studio of Federico Zuccaro. Schedoni fell ill shortly after, however, and returned to Parma. His earliest surviving works show no evidence of Roman influence. The matter of Schedoni's training remains somewhat problematic. Carlo Cesare Malvasia claimed that he was a pupil of Annibale Carracci in Bologna, but there are reasons to doubt this. First, this would have been prior to Annibale's departure for Rome in 1595, a period when Schedoni was still apparently under his father's jurisdiction. Secondly, the early pictures indicate that initially his style was formed primarily by studying the work of Correggio in Parma. To a lesser degree he was influenced by the Parmesan culture of Parmigianino, Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli and Michelangelo Anselmi. As a boy in Parma he was also known to have frequented the studio of the Fleming Giovanni Sons (1547/8-1611).
Willem Claesz Heda
1594-1682 Dutch Willem Claesz Heda Galleries Dutch painter. He was a still-life painter, who, like Pieter Claesz., is noted for his monochrome breakfast-pieces, which are, however, more opulent than those of Claesz. Heda earliest dated work is a Vanitas (1621; The Hague, Mus. Bredius), which shows a still-life from a high viewpoint, composed of various objects bearing vanitas associations (e.g. a bowl of glowing embers, smoker requisites, an overturned glass and a skull); the colouring is in brownish-grey tones and represents one of the earliest examples of a Dutch monochrome still-life (monochrome refers to the range of tones, rather than of colours). Even in this early work Heda skill at painting textures is evident. A more balanced composition is achieved in another Still-life (1629; The Hague, Mauritshuis) and in the Breakfast Table (1631; Dresden, Gemeldegal. Alte Meister), in both of which the objects, set against a neutral background, are linked by a strong diagonal. The Mauritshuis still-life also gives an early indication of Heda interest in painting the effects of light. In 1631 he became a member of the Haarlem Guild of St Luke (of which he served as deacon on several occasions after 1637).
John William North,ARA,RWS
1842-1924