One of the early painters of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance, Masaccio helped turn Italian painting from idealized Gothic iconography toward the more realistic naturalism we are familiar with today. Using linear perspective and chiaroscuro, Masaccio was known for creating lifelike figures, the illusion of movement, and a convincing sense of three-dimensionality. His career only lasted seven years, but according to Vasari’s Lives of the Artists, painters studied his frescoes to "learn the precepts and rules for painting well.”