Magnificent, large, full-page color reproductions distinguish this important monograph on Florentine painter Masaccio (1401-1428), whose naturalistic style during the last seven years of his short life revolutionized Renaissance artists' use of perspective and light. Art historian Spike, who lives in Florence and serves as a guest curator in Europe and the U.S., boldly hypothesizes that the iconography of Masaccio's frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel of Florence--with their descending tiers of heaven, sky, sea and land--was based on the creation story in Genesis. In his engaging essay on Masaccio's life and work, Spike locates sources for the artist's naturalism in Donatello's sculpture and in the classical proportions of Brunelleschi's architecture. Rejecting the prevailing assumption that Filippino Lippi's additions to Masaccio's fresco of Saint Peter, executed in the 1450s, left Masaccio's basic composition intact, Spike argues that Lippi radically reworked the original.
Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Few painters have had the impact of Masaccio (1401-28), who helped lay the naturalistic foundations of modern art during a career that seems to have lasted only six years. In his useful synthesis, Spike, an independent scholar and curator living in Florence, successfully summarizes our current understanding of the artist's career. An intelligent introductory essay sorts out his oeuvre's chronology; elucidates aspects of Masaccio's enigmatic relationship with his inferior partner, Masolino; and clarifies his connection with the great innovators Giotto, Brunelleschi, and Donatello. Commentaries accompanying the complete corpus of color illustrations allow further insights into the work's formal qualities and iconography, and a summary catalogue raisonne includes a compilation of early documentary sources, condition reports, and further scholarly discussion. Although not as exhaustive as P. Joannides's Masaccio and Masolino: A Complete Catalogue (Abrams, 1993), this volume should fulfill the requirements of most collections.?Robert Cahn, Fashion Inst. of Technology, New York
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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