Day 29 - Four Examples of Linear Perspective

Masaccio: The Tribute Money, fresco in the
Brancacci Chapel, c 1425-7

Masaccio (December 21, 1401 – autumn 1428), born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone, had a brief career but also had a profound influence on other artists during the Renaissance.   He was one of the first artists to employ the technique of vanishing point to create Linear perspective in his painting.  Masaccio’s use of perspective helps to create a strong symbolic focus and helps to create movement in the narratives he portrayed.  In Tribute Money he may have been looking at existing architecture in Florence which became the model he used for his fictional spatial representations.   Masaccio’s convincing depiction of figures in space was used as an important model for later artists.  Michelangelo spent hours sketching and studying the Brancacci frescoes.

Benozzo Gozzoli: Procession of the Magi, fresco for the
Medici Chapel in the Medici Palazzo, c. 1459

Benozzo Gozzoli (c. 1421 – 1497) was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence, best known for a series of murals in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi depicting vibrant, festive processions with amazing attention to detail and infused with International Gothic influence.

I love this painting, and I am surprised that it is a fresco, because of the vibrancy.  He uses a very strong forced perspective from the castle at the top most hilltop.  I love how he breaks that one perspective into the paths that wind around and down to where the most action is happening.  You can tell that this is only a part of the crowd and that more people are climbing the trail from the left of the image.

Mantegna: Decapitation of St. James, 1454

Andrea Mantegna (c. 1431 – September 13, 1506) son of Jacopo Bellini (also an accomplished painter), was a student of Roman archeology and a North Italian Renaissance painter.  He experimented with perspective by lowering the horizon line in attempts to create a greater sense of monumentality – he definitely succeeded.  

In his work “Decapitation of St. James” done in 1454 he breaks the picture frame with action that is stressed by a strong linear railing that spans the length of the painting and suggests an expanse of movement on both sides.  The view is force up against the path leading up to a tower on a hill and Linear Perspective is used expertly to render the figures in space.  The figures up the path are tiny while the largest characters are forced up front creating an effect that St. James decapitated head might land at the viewer’s feet.  The soldier with his arm over the rail creates a new space as he seems to occupy the space in front of the painting.

Perugino: The Delivery of the Keys to St. Peter, 1481-3

Pietro Perugino was born around 1450 and by all accounts was an accomplished painter.  His area of expertise was the wall-size fresco, which was not an easy medium. During an era when a focus on linear perspective was cutting edge visual technology, Perugino had already understood the intricacies involved better than most of his peers.  He used traditional one-point perspective as most did during the Renaissance.  He also portrayed three-dimensional depth in a way unparalleled even during this amazing period of art history.

References:
1.       http://www.radford.edu/rbarris/art216sumfall/Italian%20painting%20in%20the%2015th%20century.html
2.       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaccio
3.       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Mantegna
4.       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benozzo_Gozzoli
5.       http://www.humanitiesweb.org/human.php?s=g&p=a&a=i&ID=84