MASSYS, MATSYS, MES SYS, mit(,--4•', mr METSYS. (c.111;0-15:311?. A biblical. genre. and portrait painter of the Flemish school. His birthplace is disputed, being variously ascribed to Antwerp and Louvain: he died at the former place in 1530. According to tradition he was a loekstuith by (rule. lint upon his marriage in 1 ISo to a paint er's daughter. he his \mention. Ile stud ied tinder a local master. and in 1491 was en rolled in the Guild of Saint Luke at Antwerp. :Massy.; is important as being the earliest repre sentative of the new era, in which the human figure first comes into marked prominence in painting. Heretofore the human figure had only held a place equal in importance to landscape and architecture, but Alassys subordinates these and gives his actors preeminence, endowing them with individuality, character, and dramatic ex pression. His figures are well modeled, although they are sometimes lean and angular. and his composition is not always harmonious.
One of his greatest. surviving works is the altar-piece for the Church of Saint Peter at Louvain, now in the Brussels :Museum. completed in 1509. The subject of the centre panel is the Holy Family; the figures are nobly and solidly represented, lint without dramatic expression.
on the other hand, the scenes front the of the Virgin" on the wings of the altar are strong ly dramatic. His masterpiece is the great triptych in the Antwerp :Museum, representing the "Burial of Christ," flanked by the "Martyr dom of the Two Joints." The action of this work is intense, and the color. though gor geous, is well harmonized. Ilis other works in clude an "Enthroned Virgin." Berlin Gallery; "The Virgin in Glory," Hermitage. Saint Peters burg; and two half-length devotional figures of "Christ" and the "Virgin" at Antwerp, of which there arc copies in the National Gallery.
Massys is also well known as the originator of a class of genre pictures—character studies of burghers of Antwerp, representing money changers or misers, in couples or groups, t.eated at tables. An important example is in the Louvre, dated 1514. His few surviving portraits are strong and realistic, and show a skillful ren dition of diameter. Genuine examples arc those of -Egidius at Longford Castle; of Jean Caron delct in the Pinakothek. Munich; and a mutilated portrait of a young man in the Berlin :Museum.