Tribute Money by Masaccio - Essay Example

Tribute Money The Tribute Money by Masaccio is the most famous fresco in the Brancacci Chapel. Commissioned by Felice Brancacci and assisted by Masolino in 1424, the project was a successful masterpiece. The fresco depicted the life of St. Peter in ordinance with the Gospel of Matthew. Masaccio used linear and atmospheric perspective as well as chiaroscuro to create depth, emphasizing Realism. In the end, Tribute Money is effective and significant for its religious meaning, its style, and its composition to achieve Realism.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Christ, standing in the center, talks to the tax collector and questions if the King demands tax from his own children or strangers. Matthew, kneeling in the far left, deliberately replies strangers. The tax collectors confront the group of holy men.Christ, avoiding any offensive action towards the tax collector, instructs Peter to cast a hook and the first fish that comes up will have a coin to pay the tax collector. Masaccio’s purpose was to create a realistic painting that contained natural aspects of the environment as well as the human composition.

He focuses on directing the viewer’s eyes to the vanishing point of the painting, the head of Christ. Masaccio used atmospheric perspective, making all the mountains in the background hazy and Peter to be paler than the figures in the foreground. This technique created a depth within the painting to render Realism. It is difficult to see the cuts of the mountains in the background but the folds of the robesin the foreground are easily distinguishable. Masaccio, unlike earlier artists like Giotto, did not use a flat, neutral light from an unidentifiable source.

He used light from a specific location outside the painting to create a chiaroscuro effect, the representation of form through light and color without outlines. There is no light source visible within the picture but if the viewer notices the shadows of the figures, they are all cast away from the chapel. This makes the viewer believe the figures were lit by the light through the chapel window. Masaccio proves this belief by creating the front two columns brighter than the rest of the chapel.

Furthermore, the tax collector on the far right and the chapel wall is extremely dark. In general, all figures and objects become gradually dimmer as the viewer looks to the right. Masaccio uses the composition of his figures to create a three-dimensional world to depict reality. Masaccio’s figures in the foreground are large, solid figures that dominate the natural setting before the lake and mountains. In contrast, he uses soft hand gestures and facial expressions rather than swift actions to show movements within the painting.

This emphasizes his strong impression of naturalism. The disciples are wearing a comfy, long, two-piece robe with a delicate headpiece proper for praying. The tax collector’s body is distinguishable through their tight, vibrant clothing while the disciples’ body is more discreet behind their multiple layers of loose, stonewashed clothing. The color of the disciples robes are pale blue and pink while the officials outfit are flagrantly red. The two tax collectors each wear a short, agile, one-piece outfit that is suitable for them to travel multiple places to gather tax.

From Masaccio’s painting, the apostles look baffled and surprised oat Jesus’ predictions. This shows a renaissance change of focus among the Greeks from God to man. In this manner, Masaccio illustrates in his painting the human reaction to Christ’s strange predictions (Wilder 155). He illustrates this by introducing gestures, and facial expression. This way, the audience is taught biblical passage in form of gestures and facial expressions with which they can understand.Fashion in the classical era of the Greeks is brought out in the painting.

The characters are painted dressed in green and brown colors with tunics tied round their waists and cloaks wrapped over their shoulders, back, and then clasped at the front below their forearm. This is the kind of fashion that existed among the Greeks at the time the painting was done by Masaccio (Wilder 76). This shows how realistic and observant Masaccio is in doing his work of art. He depicted the Greek’s fashion in his painting in order for them to be able to associate with and appreciate his work easily instead of portraying something that the Greeks could not easily understand.

This also shows that Masaccio values fashion in doing his work of art. Behind the group of people standing, Masaccio creates a slopping mountainous landscape painted with different colors. The different colors of the landscape are meant to show naturalism of his work of art. The dark green colors on the sloppy mountains signify the natural forests associated with the mountains. The sloppy mountain is painted with white colors of the snow found on various mountaintops. This is a show of realism and recognition of certain aspects that are caused by nature which were not portrayed by earlier painters.

The landscape features are shown in consistence with the Gothic traditions (Wilder, 143).Masaccio arranges all the figures in horizontal lines with disposition made to look circular in shape. The shape is meant to portray the classical aspects of his painting. The classical aspects of the figures are associated with the Socrates and the disciples who surround Christ in a semi-circular pattern. Masaccio also uses scientific laws in his reconstruction of objects and features. He depicts his scientific nature by painting a variety of features of the mountains, lakes snow and clouds using a three-dimensional drawing that is scientific in nature.

For this purpose, blue is a color scientifically associated with lakes and rivers. He does not deviate from this fact and gives the lake the blue color. This also shows how realistic and analytical Masaccio is in his work of art (Wilder 155).At the far end on the right side of the painting, Masaccio paints Peter with his right leg bent, with the left leg outstretched as he extracts a coin from the mouth of the fish as instructed by Christ. The posture taken by Peter in this painting is a reflection of the Greek statues.

Masaccio in this case showed how realistic his work of art compared to those of Paolo Uccello and Domenico Veneziano. The posture is also a true reflection of the reliefs features found on Etruscan funerary urns and the Roman carvings (wilder142).ConclusionMasaccio in his tribute money depicted various aspects of the Greek’s life and art from the arrival of Jesus and the apostles, bringing it out in accordance with the gospel of St. Mathews. This he brings out by creating a scene of tax collector, Jesus Christ and Peter.

From the scene, Masaccio created a realistic painting with natural aspects of the environment as well as human composition. Masaccio also brings out the atmospheric perspective from the manner in which he paints the landscape and relief features. He was also able to create a chiascuro effect by using light from identifiable source, which is a distinguishing feature of his artistic work from those of Giotto. From his composition of figures, he was able to show reality through creation of three-dimensional world.

This showed how scientific his work was based.Work CitedMasaccio. Tribute Money: Fresco. Cappella Branncacci, Santa Maria Del Carmine, Florence, Italy. 1426. Available at: http://www.wga.hu/tours/brancacc/tribute.html.Wilder, Jesse B. Art History for Dummies. Indiana, USA: Wiley &Sons Publishing, 2007 Print.