A History of European Art

Masaccio and Early Renaissance Painting ......................................

Lecture 13

The Brancacci Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine

was a family chapel, and it was destined to become Masaccio’s most

famous work, indeed one of the high points of Italian painting and

European painting.

This lecture focuses on Masaccio, although it pays tribute to his
predecessors, including Giotto and Masolino. Tommaso de Ser Giovanni
(1401–1428)—nicknamed Masaccio, from Maso meaning “Tom” and accio
meaning “ungainly” or “large,” but we don’t know for certain what he looked
like. Masaccio was born in a village near Florence on the Arno River. At 20,
he enrolled in the Guild of St. Luke’s, the painter’s guild in Florence.

In 1425, he was hired to work with the painter Masolino, who had already
begun to decorate a chapel in the Florentine church of Santa Maria del
Carmine. The Brancacci family chapel became Masaccio’s most famous
work and one of the highpoints of Italian and European painting. Soon after
he began work on the Brancacci Chapel, he was asked to paint a polyptych
in Pisa for the Church of the Carmine. There may have been a connection
between the two churches, because Masaccio was permitted to take the new
commission. This altarpiece was later dismembered and sold in pieces.

Our example shows a part of this altarpiece, the Madonna and Child
Enthroned (1426). This painting is monumental and deeply affecting despite
its damaged state. The deep blue of the Madonna’s robe is preserved. Note
that the Christ Child is putting grapes in his mouth. These symbolize wine,
which in turn, signi¿ es Christ’s blood and the Eucharist. Note also the base,
the design of which was borrowed from Roman sarcophagi. Compare this
work to Giotto’s Ognissanti Madonna (c. 1310), done more than a century
earlier. The deep humanity that Giotto expressed at the beginning of the
Trecento was reborn in Masaccio’s painting.

Our next example shows the Brancacci Chapel (1425–1427, Santa Maria
del Carmine, Florence) from the right transept. The walls of the Brancacci