rengallery

This work represents a neat separation from the past International Gothic style; Masolino's serene composures are also left behind, and the two biblical progenitors are portrayed in dark desperation, weighed down under the angel's stern sight, who, with his unsheathed sword, forcibly expels them, with such a tension never seen before in painting. Gestures are eloquent enough: on exiting Paradise's Gates, from where some divine rays are shooting forward, Adam covers his face in desperation and guilt; Eve covers her nudity with shame and cries out, with a pained face. The bodies' dynamism, especially Adam's, gives an unprecedented passion to the figures, firmly planted on ground and projecting shadows from the violent light modelling them. Many are the details which increase the emotional drama: Adam's damp and sticky hair (on Earth, he'll struggle with hard labour and dirt), the angel's posture, foreshortened as if diving down from above.

The central scene is that of the tax collector demanding the tribute. The head of Christ is the vanishing point of the painting, drawing the eyes of the spectator there. Both Christ and Peter then point to the left hand part of the painting, where the next scene takes place in the middle background: Peter taking the money out of the mouth of the fish. The final scene – where Peter pays the tax collector – is at the right, set apart by the framework of an architectural structure.

This work maintains a heavy importance in the Art History world, as it is widely believed to be the first painting, since the fall of Rome (ca. 476 A.D.), to use Scientific Linear One Point Perspective, or, all the orthogonals point to one vanishing point, in this case, Christ. Also, it is one of the first paintings that does away with the use of a head-cluster. If you were to walk into the painting, you could walk around Jesus Christ, in the semicircle created, and back out the painting again with ease.

The whole composition presents details of astounding realism: the trembling neophyte, the water droplets from the baptised hair, the white sheet being removed in the background. Chromatic effects of "cangiantismo",[12] where drapery is modelled using contrasting colours to create an effect that simulates cangiante textiles, is achieved by Masaccio through a pictorial technique based on the juxtaposition of complementary colours, later reprised by Michelangelo.

dubbed "The Gates of Paradise" by Michelangelo; a major monument of the age of Renaissance humanism;

Brunelleschi used more than 4 million bricks in the construction of the dome. He invented a new hoisting machine for raising the masonry needed for the dome, a task no doubt inspired by republication of Vitruvius' De Architectura, which describes Roman machines used in the first century AD to build large structures such as the Pantheon and the Baths of Diocletian, structures still standing which he would have seen for himself.

commissioned by Cosimo de Medici;

the first unsupported standing work of bronze cast during the Renaissance, and the first freestanding nude male sculpture made since antiquity;

It depicts David with an enigmatic smile, posed with his foot on Goliath's severed head just after defeating the giant. The youth is completely naked, apart from a laurel-topped hat and boots, bearing the sword of Goliath.

note it looks like a woman from this angle

unprecedented realism; Though the "Penitent Magdalen" was the usual depiction for the many single figures of Mary Magdalene in art, Donatello's gaunt, emaciated figure differs greatly from most depictions, which show a beautiful young woman in perfect health.... Donatello's depiction is similar to, and very probably influenced by, Eastern Orthodox icons of Mary of Egypt, which show a similar emaciated figure. He thus ignored the Western legends by which Mary was daily fed by angels in the desert.

The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Masaccio, fresco, between 1426 and 1427, Brancacci Chapel, Florence