Masaccio, Donatello, and Brunelleschi - Renaissance Pioneers

The "pioneer generation" of the Renaissance artists was generally considered to be the painter Masaccio, the sculptor Donatello, and the architect Brunelleschi. They applied Humanist thinking to art by using the styles of the classical world, instead of their immediate past, to depict the world around them in a naturalistic manner. The idealized statuary of classical antiquity served as their models, while in architecture the classical orders were applied to Renaissance buildings. They also extended …

…the interior of one of his buildings was formed not by his usual flat walls, but by massive niches that opened from a central octagon. This style was the first step toward an architecture that led eventually to the baroque. His influence on his contemporaries and immediate followers was very strong and has been felt even in the 20th century, when modern architects came to revere him as the first great exponent of rational architecture.