tribute money
Masaccio’s Tribute Money depicts the story from the Gospel of Matthew where Christ instructs Saint Peter to pay the temple tax. This work highlights the humanist belief during the Renaissance in a harmonious coexistence of the secular and religious. According to respected Italian poet and philosopher Petrarch, classical learning and Christian spirituality were not in conflict, but could exist in partnership. Humanism in the Renaissance also held that through a return to the classics, man could be lifted from his lows of the Dark Ages to fulfill his grandest aspirations. In this painting, Masaccio breaks from the flat images seen in medieval art, and uses the technique of chiaroscuro, which contrasts light and shadow and gives figures volume and three-dimensionality. The weight and depth given to the figures portrays the emergence of man as an individual, a central tenet of Renaissance humanism.
In Tribute Money, Masaccio also paints all of the figures as life-size. Deliberately painting Christ and his followers the same size signifies a main transition from Medieval to Renaissance art; in the classical period, gods were viewed as closer to humans rather than a divine being.
In Tribute Money, Masaccio also paints all of the figures as life-size. Deliberately painting Christ and his followers the same size signifies a main transition from Medieval to Renaissance art; in the classical period, gods were viewed as closer to humans rather than a divine being.