Early Renaissance art in Florence focused on an elaborate, Gothic style of painting; very formal and traditional, yet there was always something that seemed missing. Perspective and depth were two very important qualities in painting, yet until the time of the young Masaccio, (born Tommaso Guidi), paintings were beautiful, but they just looked like art hanging on the wall. In Masaccio's work, “rather than recede in space, the figures appear to advance” (Cole 120). He may not have known it at the time, but his painting style would influence many painters even after his death; Donatello, Michelangelo and so on. Masaccio may have only painted for a total of 8 years, but during those 8 years he revolutionized not only the Renaissance period, but also the way painting could be created by the artist and seen by his viewers. Through the use of linear perspective and astronomical instruments, he was able to create extraordinary works that challenged the limits of the human eye and allowed the painting to possess realistic depth. Through his skills, Masaccio managed to move away from the Gothic and elaborate style of the time, and his paintings reflect the first use of perspective to create a sense of a realistic, three-dimensional world. In volume 1 of his “Lives of the Most Eminent Painters,” Giorgio Vasari says that Masaccio “first achieved the clear perception that painting is nothing other than the perfect imitation of all the forms presented by nature” (Vasari 95). Before Masaccio's time, many famous and brilliant painters lacked a basic sense of perspective and/or depth. Paintings like Claude Monet's Lavacour1, or Diovanni di Paolo's Saint John the Baptist Going into the Desert2 were both beautiful and... center of paper... many talents and skills, along with his mastery of foreshortening. , light, space and linear perspective, Masaccio managed to create the illusion of a real, three-dimensional world in his paintings; a world into which viewers of his works could almost enter beyond the canvas. From the beginning to the end of his time as an artist, one can see that his level of skill and confidence increased over time, until he finally created a near-perfect and realistic style of painting. Many painters study in the places where they created the art to study its styles and apply what they learn to their own art. What Masaccio began hundreds of years ago in Florence, Italy, can still be seen in the art of today; that desire to take a story and make it appear so realistic on a canvas, so much so that others, even today, almost believe they can become part of the art itself.