Artists and Their Artwork Depicting Their Era

This paper aims to assess the artwork of two artists - one traditional (Masaccio) and one modern (Pablo Picasso) - to understand the reflection of time and place in their artworks.

Running head: ARTISTS AND THEIR ARTWORK DEPICTING THEIR ERA
ARTISTS AND THEIR ARTWORK DEPICTING THEIR ERA
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

1
ARTISTS AND THEIR ARTWORK EXPLAINING THEIR ERA
The work of art is almost as old as the society itself. Various artists have been born since
the ancient times that have created artworks that are admired even today. The amazing thing
about these artworks have been the the artists’ perception of her or his time and place being
deeply and clearly visible on those artworks. This paper aims to assess the artwork of two artists
– one traditional (Masaccio) and one modern (Pablo Picasso) – to understand the reflection of
time and place in their artworks.
Masaccio is considered one of the greatest renaissance painters that the world has ever
seen. Born in Italy, Masaccio was a renaissance painter who was active during the Quattrocento
period. San Giovenale Triptych painted in 1422 is said to be Masaccio’s earliest work. The piece
of work was mainly designed as an altarpiece for the chapel most probably for some secondary
chapel at that time. Masaccio then finished one of his most famous paintings titled The Tribute
Money during the years between 1425 and 1427 (Carman, 2016). Masolino, another painter
working in the Brancacci chapel in Florence assisted Masaccio in completing this artwork.
However, Masolino abandoned Masaccio after a few years and Masaccio too left the painting
incomplete after he went to Rome where he died in 1428 (Carman, 2016). The painting depicts
the fresco scene involving Jesus Christ and his disciples in the place of Capernicum. Masaccio’s
intention behind painting this fresco scene was to end the debate surrounding the incident of
Christ taking out gold or silver coin from the mouth of a fish. While some argued that the fish
had swallowed the gold coin and Christ only took it out, others were of the view that Christ used
his magical powers to bring out gold coin from the mouth of the fish. Masaccio decided that he
would paint this incident taking a closer look at it. The art clearly resembled the happenings of
that time with Christ surrounded by his disciples in Capernicum where they had to pay taxes
levied on them by the king. The tax collector confronts Christ, as seen in the center of the

2
ARTISTS AND THEIR ARTWORK EXPLAINING THEIR ERA
picture, and on the left, Peter, the angler is collecting gold from the fish’s mouth on instructions
from Christ. On the right, Peter is seen handing over the money to the tax collector. During the
middle ages, Italian renaissance artists were desperate to be freed from the shackles of the norms
that defined the middle ages (Nygren, 2016). Masaccio created artworks with this desperation to
express his anger and frustration about the norms of his age. He had the creative power to create
three-dimensional art on a two-dimensional canvas.
In modern art, the name of Pablo Picasso comes at the fore of all the artists who have
lived in this era. Pablo Picasso, a Spanish painter born in the later part of the 19th century, has
his artwork collections categorized into different periods (Fukunaga, Ikari & Iwai, 2016). Like
Masaccio, Picasso was also a realist painter meaning he used to pain according to the time and
place of his era. However, he abandoned the realism during the Blue Period starting from 1901 to
1904. During this Blue Period, Picasso mostly painted somber arts with dark colors. The Old
Guitarist was painted in the year 1903 just after the death of Casagemas, Picasso’s closest friend
(Pablopicasso.org, 2019). The picture depicting an old man holding a guitar with torn clothes and
bare feet demonstrated the gloom of that period. The artist painted a sympathetic picture of the
poor and downtrodden who were impoverished during that time. Picasso was aware of the
feeling of being impoverished and he expressed it beautifully in the canvas. Picasso was aware
about the poverty during his time. He used only two colors to paint the picture to resemble that
the poor man only has a guitar as his companion in his blindness and poverty.
Therefore, as discussed above, it could be stated that the artworks that have been
described demonstrate that the two artists have created an artwork that reflected the time and
place of their creation. While Masaccio’s The Tribute Money reflected the time and place of

3
ARTISTS AND THEIR ARTWORK EXPLAINING THEIR ERA
Christ with his disciples, Picasso’s The Old Guitarist reflected the time during poverty and
misery especially after his friend’s death.

4
ARTISTS AND THEIR ARTWORK EXPLAINING THEIR ERA
References:
Carman, C. H. (2016). Meanings of perspective in the Renaissance: Tensions and resolution.
In Renaissance Theories of Vision (pp. 43-56). Routledge.
Fukunaga, K., Ikari, T., & Iwai, K. (2016). THz pulsed time-domain imaging of an oil canvas
painting: a case study of a painting by Pablo Picasso. Applied Physics A, 122(2), 106.
Nygren, C. J. (2016). Titian’s Christ with the Coin: Recovering the Spiritual Currency of
Numismatics in Renaissance Ferrara. Renaissance Quarterly, 69(2), 449-488.
Pablopicasso.org. (2019). The Old Guitarist by Pablo Picasso. Retrieved from
https://www.pablopicasso.org/old-guitarist.jsp