Great Thinkers in Math Masaccio

Self Portrait (detail), 1424, Brancacci Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence

The Influence of Mathematical Perspective on the Western canon of Painting

Presented by Erin McCarthy, Sarah Parrish and Marion Paxton

Masaccio (b. 1401, San Giovanni Valdarno, d. 1428, Roma)

• Born Tommaso Cassai or in some accounts Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Mone. • He 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. • 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)

Mathematical Perspective

• Scientific and mathematical breakthrough came with a generation of artist-intellectuals born in the late 14th and early 15th century. • The architect, painter and sculptor Brunelleschi was credited as "the inventor or the re-discoverer of perspective" (its theoretical and practical roots went back to antiquity). Brunelleschi (1413) is credited with the first correct formulation of linear perspective. He understood that there should be a single vanishing point to which all parallel lines in a plane, other than the plane of the canvas, converge.

Mathematical Perspective and Art

“Holy Trinity” 1427 Brancacci Chapel in S. Maria del Carmine, Florence

• Linear perspective in turn had enormous implications for architectural drawing and design, not to mention illusionistic theatrical scene painting. • Masaccio created the first surviving monuments to the new science. •The successful perspective rendering of the classical architectural setting of Masaccio's "Trinity" was a major factor in establishing it as a landmark in the history of painting.

Masaccio’s “Holy Trinity”

• Masaccio's Trinity, painted for S. Maria Novella in Florence around 1427, is usually considered to be the oldest surviving perspective painting. • It is considered Masaccio’s most mature work. We see a pyramid of figures topped by God, who holds the cross. The holy spirit is represented by the dove. St. John the Baptist on the right and the Madonna is on the left. The Madonna looks directly at us and presents Christ to us. The figures frame Christ, in the center. • Masaccio is said to have consulted with Brunelleschi on this painting. He used a grid framework, tooled right

into the surface, and very rigorous linear perspective. Even the nails are shown in perspective! He placed the vanishing point at the Mound of Golgotha, or Cavalry, the place outside Jerusalem's walls where Jesus was crucified, at the eye level of an average person. He probably felt that the illusion of depth would be greatest with the viewer right on the centric ray.

How was Perspective used in Painting?

“Tribute Money” 1425 Brancacci Chapel in S. Maria del Carmine in Florence

• In addition to spatial organization and illusion of depth and a structural focus, perspective can provide narrative focus. Since the eye invariably travels to the vanishing point of a picture, Renaissance artists did not hesitate to put something important at or near that point. • Masaccio's use of perspective is clearest in his frescos for the Brancacci

Chapel in S. Maria del Carmine in Florence, which illustrate scenes from the lives of St. Peter and St. Paul. In particular, his Tribute Money shows the confrontation of temporal and spiritual authority, and shows clear and effective use of perspective. • Perspective not only provides a visual structure for the painting, but a narrative focus, by having the vanishing point at Christ's head.