Art in Tuscany | Masaccio and Masolino da Panicale | The Madonna and Child with Saint Anne

Masaccio and Masolino da Panicale | The Madonna and Child with Saint Anne

In Florence the new age of the Renaissance began in painting with a rather subdued work, devoid of any rhetoric: The Madonna and Child with Saint Anne executed by Masolino and Masaccio in 1424. The structure of this work is simple yet extraordinarily monumental. The succession of planes is compact and follows an upward direction, thus creating a pyramid shape. The composition can certainly attributed to Masaccio who executed only the Madonna and Child and the two angels (the upper right-hand one, and the one looking down from on high). A sense of grave dignity and power emanates from the faces, from the expressions and from the solidity of the bodies.

This is a masterpiece of the youthful activity of Masaccio, already so innovative at such a young age.

The Madonna and Child with St. Anne, also known as Sant'Anna Metterza, is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Masaccio, probably in collaboration with Masolino da Panicale, c. 1424.The Virgin and Child, with its powerful volume and solid possession of space by means of an assured perspectival structure, is one of the earliest works credited to Masaccio. But for one, the angels, very delicate in their tender forms and pale, gentle colouring, are from the more Gothic brush of Masolino; the angel in the upper righthand curve reveals the hand of Masaccio. The figure of St. Anne is much worn and hence to be judged with difficulty, but her hand, which seems to explore the depth of the picture-space, may well be an invention of Masaccio. The ‘Madonna and Child with Saint Anne’ was originally commissioned for the Sant’Ambrogio church in Florence. According to Vasari, “It was placed in the chapel door which leads to the nuns’ parlour”.

The figure of Christ is that of a young child, a realistic presence, rather than a gothic cherub. This is also one of the first paintings to display the effect of true natural light on the figure; it is this invention which imparts the modelling of form so characteristic of Masaccio, and which would have a profound influence on the painting of the Italian Renaissance.
Despite the presence of a strong chiaroscuro, the painting is bright due to the use of a dense colour paste which absorbs the light and so heightens the tones. The light comes very distinctly from the left, and the figure of the Madonna casts a light but very visible shadow on the floor. The base and the throne are drawn according to precise points of reference which produce the effect of perspective.

Art in Tuscany | Masaccio

Art in Tuscany | Masolino da Panicale

Masaccio and Masolino da Panicale, The Madonna and Child with Saint Anne , 1424, tempera on panel, 175 x 103 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence


Masaccio e Masolino da Panicale, La Madonna col Bambino e sant'Anna (detail), 1424, tempera su tavola, Galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze [4]
[1] Masaccio was the most revolutionary painter of the Early Renaissance. 'The Virgin and Child' in the National Gallery is the central fragment of one of his most important works, a polyptych made at the age of 25 for the church of the Carmine in Pisa. Masaccio is recognised as one of the founders of the Florentine school of art. His monumental figures are sculpted by light; this approach was first employed by the Florentine Giotto a century earlier. Masaccio combined it with a careful use of linear perspective to give an impression of believable forms in space. Masaccio was influenced by the advances in sculpture of his friend Donatello, which he then applied to painting. His greatest surviving works are the frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel from Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence. These recently restored masterpieces were made in the 1420s in collaboration with Masolino. The name Masaccio is a nickname meaning 'hulking Tom'. He was called this ''not because he was vicious, for he was goodness personified, but on account of his extreme carelessness'' (Vasari), and perhaps also to differentiate him from 'little Tom', Masolino. Masaccio died at 27, probably from plague in Rome. Masolino da Panicale was an important Florentine artist of the early 15th century. He collaborated with Masaccio on various occasions. The fragments in the Collection are from the altarpiece which the two artists made for S. Maria Maggiore in Rome. Masolino was born in Panicale near Florence and joined the guild there in 1423. He worked in Hungary in the late 1420s. He is known for his fresco cycles in Rome, Empoli and Castiglione d'Olona, but especially for his collaboration with Masaccio in the Brancacci Chapel in Florence in the 1420s. Masolino's art is more decorative than Masaccio's. Although he learned the technique of single vanishing-point perspective, his use of it is less narratively significant than Masaccio's, and his figures retain more of the delicate charm of those by Lorenzo Monaco, who may have trained him. [] Foto di Miguel Hermoso Cuesta, licenziato in base ai termini della licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione-Condividi allo stesso modo 4.0 Internazionale

Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Florence	Arcidosso	Montalcino
Art in Tuscany \| Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
This article incorporates material from the Wikipedia article Madonna and Child (Masaccio) published under the GNU Free Documentation License. Wikimedia Commons has media related to Masaccio.
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