Background
Andrea del Castagno Florentine Renaissance painter, was born Andrea (or Andreino) de Bartolommeo at Castagno. In his brief career he developed figure painting to almost Michelangelesque grandeur and carried portraiture to a point of vigorous and massive realism.
Career
Many of Castagno's major works, all of them frescoes, are collected in the former convent of S. Apollonia, Florence: a Last Supper, two Crucifixions, and a series of heroic figures representing the great men of Florence and their legendary precursors. His equestrian portrait of Niccolo da Tolentino (1456), also in fresco, confronts Uccello's Sir John Hawkwood in the cathedral in Florence. Among the rare tempera paintings ascribed to Castagno, two of the most impressive are now in the National Gallery at Washington: a David painted on a leather shield, and a half-length male portrait.