The Italian painter Masaccio (1401-1428) was the first great exponent of Renaissance painting. In his brief life he produced four major works utilizing the new discipline of space defined in perspective.

Tommaso di Giovanni, called Masaccio, was born in San Giovanni Valdarno on the day of St. Thomas, for whom he was named. His father, Giovanni Cassai, died when Masaccio was 5; his mother remarried, and a stepsister's husband, the only local painter, Mariotto di Cristofano, in all likelihood took Masaccio on as an apprentice. He probably received the nickname Masaccio (Terrible Tom) to distinguish him from his collaborator Masolino (Little Tom).

Masaccio went to Florence when he was about 20 and very soon joined the most modern and prominent artist group there, headed by the sculptor-architect Filippo Brunelleschi and the sculptor Donatello. Claiming as their own the heritage of Roman antiquity and of Giotto, the great Florentine master of...