EARLY RENAISSANCE --ITALY. Italian painting had the great advantage' of flourishing contem poraneously with a very high intellectual and a general artistic development. What the North erner knew but imperfectly, as a result of his own observation, the Italian based on scientific knowledge of natural laws. The laws of linear perspective (q.v.) were discovered and applied Brunelleschi and Alberti; anatomy was sci entifically studied, even the skeleton being drawn before the flesh and the draperies. Renaissance architecture afforded large wall spaces for deco ration and the resulting frescoes gave a monu mental character to painting. The study of the antique tended to idealize art and afforded deco rative motives; but the Italians only saw in it a means of approaching nature. Finally, a natu ral tact prompted them to subordinate detail, while not neglecting it, to higher poetic truth, thus giving their art the charming naturalism which is its chief characteristic during the fif teenth century.
During the fifteenth century Florence retained its primacy of Italy, both as to the number of artists and the character of work produced. Florentine work was especially good in in tellectual qualities, excelling in all respects except in color. (See FLORENTINE, SCHOOL OF PAINTING.) The first painter who can be dis tinctly classed as belonging to the Renaissance is Masolino (1383-1447), whose works show ad vance in perspective, composition, and anatomy. All of these qualities were achieved to a greater extent by Masaceio (1401-28), the most promi nent figure in Italian painting between Giotto and High Renaissance. His figures are power ful and dramatic, and show complete mastery of perspective. Every detail has its purpose, and in his composition every figure is a necessity. His frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel were the models of the century, and their influence may even be seen in the works of Michelangelo and Raphael.
None of Masaccio's followers or contempo raries equaled him. A group of Naturalists, the
head of which was Paolo Uccello (1397-1475), made valuable experiments in perspective and were good in drawing, but lacked composition and pictorial feeling. Other members of this school were Andrea del Castagno, Domenico Veneziano. and Alesso Baldovinetti. Masaccio's real successor was Filippo Lippi (1406-69), a painter of great imagination and charm, who ex celled in the essentially pictorial qualities of color, light, and shade, and was the first to portray individual faces in the sacred pictures. (See MAnoNNA.) The school of Filippo Lippi con tains important names. Sandro 13otticelli's (e.1447-e.1510) paintings are full of poetic senti ment and deep spirituality. His art is the most subtle of the century, though highly individual ized, both in his dreamy Madonnas, and in his large mythological pictures. Filippino Lippi's (1457-1504) painting, modeled upon that of his father and Masaccio and influenced by Botticelli, is also full of grace and sentiment.
Among other Florentine painters of the period were Benozzo Gozzoli, a pupil of Fra Angelico, who painted attractive frescoes with portrait heads, and Piero di Cosimo, known by his mythologieal pictures on a small scale. Another distinct group was composed of painters who were at the same time goldsmiths. Their habit of metal work is seen in the treatment of flesh, whieh is bronze-like in color. in the rigid draperies, and the high relief in which the fig ures are modeled. Chief among this group are the Pollaimolo brothers, who flourished in the latter half of the century, and especially Andrea Verroechio (1435-SS). Among \ errocchio's pu pils were Leonardo da Vinci (see below) and Lorenzo di Credi. whose work is less strong than graceful. Finally, Domenico Ghirlandajo (1-1-111 94) combined in his art the various tendencies of the century, being an able technician in most respects, and a pleasing artist, but one who lacked the genius to produce a new style.