Brancacci chapel (Santa Maria del Carmine) III

Adam and Eve      Faces of Adam     Eve

There is no God, as often seen in medieval manuscripts, but only rays of light reminiscent of the thundering voice of the Lord. Light is falling on both figures, streaming in from the right through the windows. The parallel dark shadows of Eve and Adam foreshadow a gloomy future. Adam walks bent over and covers his face with his hands. Eve has thrown her head back, her mouth is opened as if crying out. This is suffering, fear and despair.

Ghiberti ‘Four scenes of Adam and Eve’
Expulsion from the Garden of Eden

Within this framework, Ghiberti was able to tell his story. At the so-called golden gate (story of the Golden Gate), his second door, he only had ten frames, although they were considerably larger than the quatrefoils. Such a wide size has great advantages, but also disadvantages. The advantage is that the artist has a spacious stage on which he can paint his figures, the buildings and the landscape. Moreover, such a wide size also fits with the way we look at people. The big problem arises when the artist has to depict many stories in a limited number of frames. In the Brancacci Chapel only ten frames are available for the many stories (originally sixteen without the vault). How was this solved? Ghiberti depicted four scenes from the Creation in one panel as you can see below. Masaccio chose a different solution.

He used what we call the ‘simultaneous method’. This means that by depicting one figure several times in the depiction, you also introduce a time lapse. This way you see the tax collector twice. The first time he asks Christ to pay tax and the second time, later in the story, he stands at the gate and receives the money. We see Peter exactly as the evangelist Matthew (17: 27) describes it: “go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours”

Peter and the fish

Christ speaking to Peter that he must go and catch a fish is seen to the left of the middle. Peter must have been a little surprised by the words of Christ as evident by his frown. Peter’s left hand gestures that he will do what is asked of him. Peter’s other hand points to the sea where the story continues. On the left Peter can be seen taking the coin out of the fish’s mouth. As an interesting sidenote, the large restoration effort made that coin visible again. On the right we see Peter again when he is paying. Here, Peter also symbolises the church. Because he pays, the church acknowledges that it has to pay tax to the state. The tribute money would also be a protest against the introduction of a new tax, the catasto, in Florence in 1425 and 1427. Felice de Brancacci was vehemently opposed to this tax.

Peter is pays tax money

Despite the seventeen life-sized figures, the story is very legible. The landscape as a quiet background does not distract from the story. The customs house on the right is reminiscent of the loggia that Donatello carved earlier in the predella near his Saint George. The lines of the eaves, the cordon strips and the steps of the stairs meet at the face of Christ. This quickly directs the viewer’s eye to the beginning of the story. Christ is not standing in the middle of the picture plane, but to the left. This composition must have been given serious thought. For example, the tribute money is exactly six times as wide as the adjacent Expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Furthermore, the group of apostles around Christ accounts for exactly half of the whole. Meanwhile, the part where Peter takes money from the mouth of the fish is exactly the one-sixth part of the tribute money. The right-hand section, where Peter pays the money to the tax collector, occupies two sixths of this fresco. The pagan character of the taxpayer, which can only be seen in the right-hand section of the composition, is underlined by his Roman tunic.