CHIAROSCURO
The first painter to use chiaroscuro to represent a form through light and shade rather than a series of contours. The influence of Donatello is evident in Masaccio’s modelling of forms and rendering of solid objects in an almost sculptural way
LINEAR AND AERIAL PERSPECTIVE
The first painter to introduce Brunelleschi’s systematic perspective into painting using mathematical laws, he was also the first exponent of aerial perspective
THE ANTIQUE
The first painter to systematically reassess antique sculpture. This helped create an art, which was more natural than that produced in the Trecento. Poses are borrowed from the antique, and gesture too.
REALISM AND NARRATIVE
Masaccio’s style of painting offered an alternative to the prevailing dainty and decorative International Gothic style. It is an austere, sober and heroic style concerned with observed realism
PSYCHOLOGICAL REALISM
Masaccio’s way of considering emotion and the workings of the human mind. Observed first of all, and particularly strongly, in Donatello’s St Mark. 1411-13.
NATURALISTIC ANATOMY
Observation of the real human body, as well as anatomy influenced by classical sculpture. Look at his Adam from The Expulsion from Eden
SACRA CONVERSAZIONE
Tribute Money, cf. Nanni di Banco’s 4 Crowned Saints – a sculpture for the Stonecutter’s Guild’s Niche on Orsanmichele.
