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Updated: June 7, 2025
Salome is a graceful, slender creature; the two women who regard her offering to Herodias with mingled curiosity and horror are well conceived. The background consists of a mountain landscape in Masaccio's simple manner, a rich Renaissance villa, and an open loggia.
The romantic mystery of Masaccio's short life and sudden, secret death, and the wonderful advance that he effected in the evolution of Italian painting of the fifteenth century, had greatly interested them as they had read at home about him, and all were eager to see the frescoes. "They are somewhat worn and dark," Mr. Sumner said, "and at first you will probably feel disappointed.
They tried to imagine his life during the four years which he spent in the Medici Palace, now Palazzo Riccardi, under the patronage of Lorenzo the Magnificent, while he was studying with the same tremendous energy that marked all his life, going almost daily to the Brancacci Chapel to learn from Masaccio's frescoes, and plunging into the subject of anatomy more like a devotee than a student.
That he read much, we know, the Bible and Dante being constant companions; and we know also that in addition to modelling and copying under Bertoldo, he was assiduous in studying Masaccio's frescoes at the church of the Carmine across the river, which had become a school of painting.
Moreover, he imparted extreme softness and harmony to his paintings, and was careful to have the carnations of the heads and other nude parts in accordance with the colours of the draperies, which he represented with few and simple folds as they are seen in real life. Masaccio's principal remaining works are his frescoes in the famous Branacci Chapel at the Carmine convent in Florence.
He then called their attention to the composition of Masaccio's frescoes; asking them especially to notice that, while only a few people are taking part in the principal scene, many others are standing about interested in looking on; all, men with strongly marked characteristics, individual, and worthy of attention.
Strangely enough, his first work was to paint the walls of the Carmille Chapel that same chapel where Filippo and Diamante had learned their lessons, and had gazed with such awe and reverence on Masaccio's work. The great painter, Ugly Tom, was dead, and there were still parts of the chapel unfinished, so Filippino was invited to fill the empty spaces with his work.
While it was in progress all the young artists came to Sant' Onofrio to study it, as they and its creator had before flocked to the Carmine, where Masaccio's frescoes had for three-quarters of a century been object-lessons to students.
The background consists of a mountain landscape in Masaccio's simple manner, a rich Renaissance villa, and an open loggia. The architecture perspective is scientifically accurate, and a frieze of boys with garlands on the villa is in the best manner of Florentine sculpture. On the mountain side, diminished in scale, is a group of elders, burying the body of S. John.
If from Giotto's influence a stream of vigour had flowed such as flowed from Masaccio's, there would have been nothing special to note about Masaccio at all. But the impulse which Giotto gave to art died down; some one had to reinvigorate it, and that some one was Masaccio. In his remarks on painting, Leonardo da Vinci sums up the achievements of the two.
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