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 :. | Madonna and Child | Adoration of the Magi | Madonna and Child with St Anne Metterza | The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden | Madonna and Child with St. Anne |
Related Artists:
Gerard van Spaendonck
(22 March 1746 - 11 May 1822) was a Dutch painter. Gerard was born in Tilburg, an older brother of Cornelis van Spaendonck (1756-1840), who was also a renowned artist. In the 1760s he studied with decorative painter Willem Jacob Herreyns (also known as Guillaume-Jacques Herreyns) (1743-1827) in Antwerp. In 1769 he moved to Paris, and in 1774 was appointed miniature painter in the court of Louis XVI. In 1780 he succeeded Madeleine Françoise Basseporte (1701-1780) as professor of floral painting at the Jardin des Plantes, and shortly afterwards was elected a member of the Academie des beaux-arts. Gerard van Spaendonck painted with both oil and watercolors. He contributed over fifty works to the Velins du Roi, which was a famous collection of botanical watercolors possessed by French royalty. From 1799 to 1801 he published twenty-four plates of his Fleurs Dessinees d'apres Nature (Flowers Drawn from Life), which were high-quality engravings for students of floral painting. Today, Fleurs Dessinees d'apres Nature is a highly treasured book on floral art. In 1788 Spaendonck was appointed adviser to the Academie, and in 1795 he became a founding member of the Institut de France. In 1804 he received the Legion d'honneur and soon afterwards was ennobled by Napoleon Bonaparte. He died in Paris.
John Charles Dollman
British, 1851-1934, He was an English painter and illustrator. Dollman was born in Hove on 6 May 1851 and moved to London to study at South Kensington and the Royal Academy Schools, after which he set up a studio at Bedford Park, London. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1870 to 1912, and was elected RWS (Member of the Royal Watercolour Society) in 1913. Dollman was also an illustrator, working in black and white or colour for magazines such as the Graphic during and after the 1880s. Some of his early work has been said to have influenced Van Gogh . A central theme was ambitious mythological pictures such as a Viking Foray, a Viking horde entitled the Ravagers, The Unknown (1912), featuring a girl surrounded by chimps and Orpheus and his Lute with Lions. He also produced bold compositions of animals and people such as Robinson Crusoe and His Man Friday, Polo and Mowgli made leader of the Bandar-log (1903) . His best known work is possibly A London Cab Stand (1888) , focussing on a group of horses in a stormy scene . He composed at least three variants of this picture, and there are other instances where he made copies or near-copies of individual pictures. In the 1890s he painted pictures of soldiers, and some less well regarded genre pictures of people with animals. He also painted wild animal pictures without attempting any narrative content . Dollman's works are in the collections of various galleries. The Immigrants' Ship (1884) is in the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide . 'The Ravager' is owned by the Trustees of the Royal Watercolour Society, London, [8]. A version of The Unknown is in the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle. A London Cab Stand is in the London Museum. A Dog's Home, Table d'Hote (1879) is in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool , and During the Time of the Sermonses (1896), an odd picture of a pair of religious people approaching two golfers, is in the collection of the Harris Museum, Preston , while 'Famine' (1904) is at the Salford Museum and Art Gallery Dollman died on 11 December 1934, aged 83.
Pontormo
Italian Mannerist Painter, 1494-ca.1556 Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the leading painter in mid-16th-century Florence and one of the most original and extraordinary of Mannerist artists. His eccentric personality, solitary and slow working habits and capricious attitude towards his patrons are described by Vasari; his own diary, which covers the years 1554-6, further reveals a character with neurotic and secretive aspects. Pontormo enjoyed the protection of the Medici family throughout his career but, unlike Agnolo Bronzino and Giorgio Vasari, did not become court painter. His subjective portrait style did not lend itself to the state portrait. He produced few mythological works and after 1540 devoted himself almost exclusively to religious subjects. His drawings, mainly figure studies in red and black chalk, are among the highest expressions of the great Florentine tradition of draughtsmanship; close to 400 survive, forming arguably the most important body of drawings by a Mannerist painter.