Peter more particularly, bent forward and making considerable effort as he draws the money from the mouth of the fish, has his face reddened with the exertion and position. When he pays the tribute also, the expression of his face as he carefully counts the money, with that of him who receives it, and which last betrays an excessive eagerness to become possessed of it; all this is depicted with the most vivid truth, the latter regarding the coins which he holds in his hand with the greatest pleasure. Masaccio also depicted the restoration to life of the king’s son by St. Peter and St. Paul,[1] but this last work remained unfinished at the death of Masaccio, and was afterwards completed by Filippino. In the picture which represents St. Peter administering the rite of Baptism, there is a figure which has always been most highly celebrated: it is that of a naked youth, among those who are baptised, and who is shivering with the cold. This is in all respects so admirable and in so fine a manner, that it has ever since been held in reverence and admiration by all artists, whether of those times or of a later period.[2] This chapel has indeed been continually frequented by an infinite number of students and masters, for the sake of the benefit to be derived from these works, in which there are still some heads so beautiful and life-like, that we may safely affirm no artist of that period to have approached so nearly to the manner of the moderns as did Masaccio. His works do indeed merit all the praise they have received, and the rather as it was by him that the path was opened to the excellent manner prevalent in our own times; to the truth of which we have tes-
- ↑ The description of the stories painted by Masaccio in the Brancacci Chapel is not correct; those by that master are the following:—Adam and Eve driven from Paradise, a picture imitated, with but slight deviations from the original, by Raphael, in the Loggia of the Vatican; Christ commanding Peter to pay the tribute-money; Peter baptizing the people (in this is the celebrated figure of the shivering youth): the history of Ananias; Peter healing the lame, and restoring the blind to sight, by his shadow;—and, finally, the resuscitation by St. Peter of the youth who had fallen down dead, one part of which was finished by Filippino Lippi. Meyer (in the Prothyläen) ascribes the Preaching of St. Peter also to Masaccio; but this is by Masolino da Panicale. See Rumohr, Ital. Forsch. ii, 249, who shews that Lasinio also is in error, when he attributes Peter and Paul before the Proconsul to Masaccio, that picture also being the work of Filippino Lippi. —Ludwig Schorn.
- ↑ Lanzi says, “this figure may be said to have made an epoch in the history of art.”
