The Tribute Money (Masaccio)

This particular painting that we're looking at this week is actually a fresco painted in the 1420s by Masaccio. And Masaccio was a painter of the Italian Renaissance. This painting, The Tribute Money, is now in the Brancacci Chapel, which is located in a church in Florence. This painting was originally recommended to me by my friend Talia, which is actually a little funny because she's Jewish. But the scene that is depicted here is taken from the New Testament, from the Gospel of Matthew. Particularly, this is, I believe, chapter 17. And what happened was Jesus and Peter arrived in Capernaum and they were approached by a tax collector and they were asked to pay a tax. And this, of course, was a problem because Jesus didn't actually have any money with him based on his ideals, this idea of renouncing worldly possessions. So there's a bit of a discussion amongst Jesus and Peter as to whether or not it's really justified that they should be paying this tax. But in the end, Jesus decides that it is appropriate to pay the tax on the condition that they don't want to upset the local officials. So what he does, since he doesn't have any money on his person, is he directs Peter to go over to the water and to reel in a fish. And inside the fish's mouth is a gold coin that can be used to pay the tax. And what's interesting about this canvas is it's what we call a continuous narrative painting, where actually three different periods in time are depicted together on this single canvas. But it's not read from left to right. You've got these three different divisions here. There's one scene, here's another scene, and then we have the third scene over on the right-hand side. So this is where we begin. This is number one. That's a bad number one. There we go, number one. And you can see here the tax collector who is approaching Jesus right here, who's in the center. And here's Peter. And this is the scene, of course, where he's saying, come on, you guys, you've got to pay the tax just like everybody else. And then we move over to the left, to scene number two, where we can actually see Peter here reaching into the water and pulling up a fish with the coin in its mouth. And then finally, the third part of the painting, or the last scene, is over here on the far right, where we see Peter actually paying the tax to the tax collector. Now the positioning of the disciples here mirrors the architectural purpose of this painting. And notice that the tax collector here is outside of that sort of holy semicircle to suggest the fact that he's segregated from the rest of the men or apostles that are assembled here. Now there's a bit of artistic license here because, as I said, it was really just Jesus and Peter who had gone into Capernaum, so the rest of the disciples would not have been immediately present there. Also notice that the tax collector is distinguished by his clothing, whereas Jesus and his disciples are wearing these long robes. The tax collector here has this very short skirt or tunic on. His stance here is also interesting. This is what we call a contraposto, the way that his legs are positioned here. And notice that he has his back to us, once again suggesting that he's separate from this group. His gestures, particularly the placement of his hands, mirrors that of both Peter and Jesus. So as if we had turned Peter 180 degrees, we would now see his hand in the exact same placement. So it's important for two reasons, really. One, it creates a very strong contrast, which distinguishes Peter, this holy man, really the first leader of the Catholic Church. And then the tax collector, who as I said, just like he's kind of segregated from this circle of holy men, he's also distinct from the others based on this contrasting body language, contrasting hand placement. The second important thing about that is that it adds a sort of three-dimensionality or depth to the painting. And we can maybe talk a little bit about why, when I was discussing the division of the painting, why we begin here in the center, right, with the first scene, kind of within the painting, but then we're moving over here to the left. And it's interesting because the placement of Jesus' hand and Peter's hand directs us where we want to go in the painting. So even though it isn't sequentially ordered, the compositional structure of the painting provides hints as to where we're supposed to look next. And immediately your eyes go to Jesus, because Jesus forms the vanishing point of this painting, and Masaccio was a big fan of linear one-point perspective, and this was actually one of the first paintings to employ this. I'm trying to draw these lines as straight as I can, and I'm not doing a very good job. He was also one of the first artists to incorporate weather into his paintings. We can see here this kind of cloudy sky, this great use of atmospheric perspective, which additionally adds depth to the painting. Remember, atmospheric perspective is this idea that objects that are further in the distance are less distinct, which gives us the illusion of them being further away. The source of light here is also distinct, and the figures here are illuminated in the same way that the actual natural light would have filled the chapel. So it's coming in over here on the right side. Obviously you can't see it in the painting, but over to the right side of the painting is where the window was in the chapel, so the light would have illuminated the right-hand side of the figures that are depicted here. And that creates this idea of contrast between light and dark regions, what we call chiaroscuro. We've talked about that before as well. And that chiaroscuro effect is another means by which Masaccio adds depth and volume to each figure. And his attention to detail is especially significant here. He was also one of the first painters to actually paint casted shadows.