CHAPTER III.—MASACCIO AND THE NEW REALISM
On the general matter of the realists of the Early Renaissance not much has been added to Crowe and Cavalcaselle, but Mr. Berenson’s comment in Florentine Painters and Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance is of high critical value. Vasari is interesting, but never more inaccurate than when dealing with this group. As usual the latest collected information is in Venturi. Storia, Vol. VII, part I, and elsewhere.
[28]. Matteo Villani, Istorie, Florence, 1581, Lib. I, cap. iv, pp. 5–6.
[29]. Lorenzo Monaco. The standard work is by O. Sirén, Don Lorenzo Monaco, Strassburg, 1905.
[30]. Fra Angelico. Langton Douglas. Fra Angelico, London and New York, 1900.
Vasari’s Life is admirable and in essentials correct.
[31]. Masolino-Masaccio. The summary in C. & C. (Douglas) Vol. IV; (Hutton), Vol. II, reasonably brings the controversy up to date. The latest review is by Dr. Richard Offner, Art in America, Vol. VIII, pp. 68–76, A St. Jerome by Masolino. Dr. Offner, in Dedalo, Mar., 1923, publishes a fine St. Julian, by Masolino, which reveals in a new light that artist’s romantic temperamentalism. Mr. Berenson, l. c., publishes a predella piece for the same panel.
The large album of plates accompanying August H. Schmarsow’s Masaccio, der Begründer des Klassischen Stils &c. Kassel, 1900, is indispensable to the serious student. It is available in the great libraries. Cuts of all the works involved in the controversy are more readily attainable in P. Toesca’s Masolino da Panicale, Bergamo, 1908, and in Venturi, Storia, Vol. VII, pt. I.
[32]. The rider with his back turned at the left of the fresco of the Calvary has a rondel protecting the nape of his neck. It is a short-lived and unsuccessful invention which was not used before 1435–40. This information, which I owe to Dr. Bashford Dean of the Metropolitan Museum, dates the Calvary well after Masaccio’s death, and, inferentially, all the other frescoes in the same chapel.
[33]. Cassoni and other Furniture Panels. The standard work is by Paul Schubring, Cassoni &c. Leipzig, 1915.
Many of the examples in American Collections have been published and discussed by William Rankin and myself in the Burlington Magazine, Vol. VIII, IX. See also a popular sketch by me in Arts and Decoration, Dec. ’05. The furnishing and decoration of a patrician Florentine house in the 15th century is learnedly and delightfully treated by A. Schiaparelli, La Casa fiorentina &c., Florence, 1908.
[34]. See my article in Art in America, Vol. VIII, p. 154, and in Arts and Decoration, Note 6, above.
[35]. Masaccio, bibliography in Note 4 above.
In essentials the view and chronology of Masaccio’s works here given differs from Cavalcaselle’s only in relegating the frescoes in S. Clemente to Masolino and their proper date in the late 30s or early 40s. In this I have been partially anticipated by Pietro Toesca, Masolino da Panicale, Bergamo, 1908.
The reader may justly wish me to commit myself on this most disputed question to the extent of a list. I give it in a tentative chronological order assuming that Masaccio may have begun to work as early as 1420.
Early Works under Masolino’s influence:
Madonna and Saints (fresco). Shrine at Montemarciano near S. Giovanni.
Pietà (fresco). Cathedral, Empoli.
Miracle of healing by Christ (ruined by repainting). John C. Johnson Coll., Philadelphia.
Madonna and St. Ann. Uffizi, Florence.
Adam and Eve Tempted (fresco). Brancacci Chapel.
Resuscitation of Tabitha (fresco). Brancacci Chapel.
Later Works:
St. Peter Preaching (fresco, possibly earlier). Brancacci Chapel.
Birth of St. John (salver). Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin.
Polyptych for the Carmine, Pisa, 1426.
The Madonna, some small pilaster pieces, and a small rondel with bust of God Father. National Gallery, London.
Three predella panels (largely school work) and some small pilaster pieces. Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin.
Crucifixion central pinnacle. Naples Museum.
A Saint (upper order). Civic Museum, Pisa.
A Saint (upper order). Lanckoronski, Vienna.
The Trinity (fresco). S. Maria Novella, Florence.
All the remaining frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel save the parts and panels now universally assigned to Filippino Lippi.
[36]. Schmarsow, Masaccio Studien, bd. 3. p. 27, 8.
[37]. Andrea del Castagno, see the important articles by Herbert P. Horne in the Burlington Magazine, Vol. VII, 1905. Richard Offner, in Art in America, Vol. VII, pp. 227–35, first published the admirable portrait in Mr. Morgan’s Library, New York. A magnificent tournament shield with the figure of a David is in the Widener Collection, Elkins Park, Penna., and was first published by Guido Cagnola in Rassegna d’ Arte, Vol. XIII (1913), p. 49.
Andrea worked at Venice in 1442. See G. Fiocca, Burlington Magazine, Vol. XL, p. 11.
[38]. Alesso Baldovinetti. See E. Londi, Alesso Baldovinetti, Firenze, 1907.