Masaccio: The Birth of Perspective
Masaccio was modelled on the masters, Giotto, Brunelleschi and Donatello, and was deeply aware of the value of the "New Man" and his existence in society, the meaning of Brunelleschian perspective and Donatello's sense of intense humanity. His artistic carrier, though brief, was highly innovatory. With him, painting and the history of art took a new course. Man became an authentic individual with passions and feelings, anchored to physical, concrete, real life.
Masaccio was the first Renaissance artist to have grasped and interpreted man's deepest and most mundane reality. In his painting the rigorous construction of spacial perspective, and the sapient use of chiaroscuro and colour, accompany a profound human and moral content expressed in intense, tragic drama.
Masaccio's work influenced great artists such as Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raffaello, to name only the most famous, above all in the solutions they adopted when reproducing, as faithfully as possible, the theory of perspective which was taking form and substance in those very years. In this context it is worth remembering one of his most exceptional works, the fresco "La Trinità"
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