Masaccio

Born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone in December 1401, he picked up the nickname Masaccio — "clumsy Tom" — possibly to set him apart from his collaborator Masolino, "delicate Tom." Working in Florence in the mid- and late-1420s, he broke from the gilded ornamentation of the International Gothic style and artists like Gentile da Fabriano, using linear perspective, vanishing points, chiaroscuro, nudes, and foreshortening to build figures that looked like they occupied real space. Vasari later called him the best painter of his generation for his ability to imitate nature and recreate lifelike…