Un santo carmelitano barbuto

In 1426 a notary in Pisa paid a young Florentine named Masaccio for an altarpiece in the Carmelite church there. Masaccio was in his mid-twenties, and within two years he would be dead, probably before he turned 27. The altarpiece did not survive intact either. Sometime later it was taken apart, and its panels drifted across Europe, to London, Naples, Vienna and here to Berlin. This is one of the smaller pieces, a bearded Carmelite in the order's white mantle, barely a hand's-width wide. He would once have stood in a vertical strip beside the larger scenes, one of a row of saints flanking the central Madonna. What holds the eye is the weight Masaccio gives a figure this small: real shadow, a solid body under the cloth, and a face that looks worn and human.