Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/381

 In Florence. 351 church and baptistery of Castiglione di Olona, and in the Brancacci Chapel in the church of the Carmine at Florence. Chief among these painters was To mmaso Gu idi, com- monly called Mgsaccio; he was the pupil of Masolino, and might, with better just- ice than Cimabue, be styled the father of modern Italian painting ; he excelled all his predecessors in knowledge of form, perspective and chiaroscuro. Masaccio (1401 — 1428) was born at Castel S. Gio- vanni, in the Val d'Arno, and when quite a boy worked under Masolino at the fres- coes in the Brancacci Chapel, in the church of the Car- mine, Florence.* In his frescoes Masaccio gave proof of remarkable powers, and the influence of Ghiberti is very distinctly traceable. Their chief excellences are the admirable treatment of the nude human figure — the judicious foreshortening of the extremities, the happy Fig. 126. — The Expulsion from Paradise. By Masaccio. In the Brancacci Chapel, Florence. after Masolino's death ; but inasmuch as the latter survived the former by nineteen years, this is impossible. It may be serviceable
 * It has commonly been said that Masaccio finished these frescoes