The Madonna and Child with Angels is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Masaccio, who worked in collaboration with his brother Giovanni and with Andrea di Giusto[1]. The format of this painting is unusually tall and narrow for the central composition of a polyptych of this date. The sides of the panel have been cut, although scholars cannot agree as to how much of the original has been lost. The gilt and tooled spandrels at the upper left and right would have been visible in the interstices of the original frame. The pointed arch of unworked wood marks the position of the missing frame that originally enclosed the Madonna from above. Its Gothic point is quaintly old-fashioned in comparison to the massive Renaissance throne.[0]

The painting is the central panel of the Pisa Altarpiece, a large multi-paneled altarpiece executed for the chapel of St. Julian, owned by the notary Giuliano di Colino in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Pisa. The grapes the Child eats refer to the blood shed on the cross and the wine of the Last Supper. The surface is disfigured by losses and old retouchings and was originally more decorative: the Virgin's dress was a translucent red over silver leaf, which has now dulled.

The painting is in a very damaged state, the altarpiece having been cut up and sold in pieces long ago. Today the panel is smaller than its original state; it has lost perhaps as much as 8 cm. at the bottom and 2-2.5 cm. at each side.[2] Eleven surviving panels of the altarpiece, which is the only documented work by Masaccio, are in various museums.[3] Scholars hypothesize the reconstruction of the altarpiece based on a very complete description by Vasari.[4]

The painting contains six figures: the Madonna and Child and four angels. The Madonna is the centre figure and is larger than any of the others to signify her importance. The Virgin, wrapped in a voluminous blue cloak edged with gold, is conceived in statuesque proportions, although her face expresses a tender vulnerability. This unexpected juxtaposition of massiveness and poignancy is analogous to the effect that Donatello achieved in his statues of prophets.[0]
Christ sits on her knees, eating grapes offered to him by his mother. Although he is an exceedingly babyish baby (in comparison to the babies of Masaccio's immediate predecessors, like Lorenzo Monaco or Gentile da Fabriano), the grapes are a symbol of his blood - like the red wine of Communion - which indicates Christ's awareness of his eventual death. His halo is oval in shape -- a circle foreshortened in space. This rationalistic invention by Masaccio was first prominently used in the Brancacci Chapel.[0]
The Madonna looks sorrowfully at her child, as she also realises his fate.

Originally a panel of the Crucifixion stood above this painting, underlining the sacrificial (Eucharistic) nature of the image.[5] In many ways the style of the painting is traditional; the expensive gold background and ultramarine draperies of the Virgin, her enlarged scale, and her hierarchical presentation (ceremoniously enthroned) all fit within the late-medieval formulas for the representation of Mary and Jesus in glory. In other ways, however, the painting is a step away from International Gothic in the sense that Masaccio has created a more realistic approach to the subject:

* The faces are more realistic and not idealised.
* The baby Jesus is less of a small man and more child-like.
* An attempt at creating depth has been attempted by Massacio's placement of the two background angels and through the use of linear perspective in the throne.
* Modeling is clearly visible as the light source is coming from the left of the painting.
* The Madonna is a bulky figure, deriving from classical models, and her drapery has larger and more naturalistic folds that shape her body.

Masaccio has used linear perspective to create pictorial space; it can be seen on the orthogonal on the cornice of her throne. The vanishing point is at the child's foot. The reason for this is that the work was originally located above a representation of the Adoration of the Magi, in which one of the magi kisses Jesus' foot. Although the paintings are noticeably different (the subjects are clothed differently and on different chairs) the Madonna is more or less in the same position in both works.

This parallelism is designed to make viewers have the same attitude as the magus when looking at the Madonna and Child. They are imagined to be kneeling in front of Mary, and could easily lean forward to kiss the foot of Jesus.

Masaccio has also used the overlapping of figures and objects to create pictorial space, like the two angels in the foreground overlapping the throne and the throne overlapping the two angels in the background.

Some smaller fragments of the altarpiece survive in other collections: a Crucifixion over the central panel, and predella panels mainly showing lives of the saints - John the Baptist, Saint Julian, Saint Peter and Saint Nicholas, with the Adoration of the Kings in the centre. The altarpiece is likely to have been designed as a polyptych. Masaccio was an innovative artist, who influenced the course of the Renaissance in Italy. This altarpiece shows an early use of single-point linear perspective. Elements of the painting meet at a central vanishing-point and are foreshortened to accommodate the viewpoint of the spectator looking up. The figure of the Child is three-dimensional, emphasised by his elliptical halo. Masaccio may been influenced by the sculptor Donatello who is known to have collected payments for the altarpiece on Masaccio's behalf.