Born in the Veneto, the region around Venice, Massagrande was, from an early age, steeped in a cultural tradition full of art and architecture. Galleries, churches and public buildings served up an aesthetic education for a young man eager to enfold himself in a world of artistic achievement. He was exposed to a panoply of great painters, including Mantegna, Veronese, Tintoretto and Canaletto. He broadened his enquiries into the masters of the Dutch Golden Age, the Northern European tradition and onto the giants of the nineteenth century. The mature painter marshals a comprehensive and deep knowledge of art history, which continues to inform his studio practice.
Massagrande paints interiors and landscapes that evoke complex ideas about place, home and belonging. An important and long-running theme explores arrangements of interconnecting rooms and passages, where tiled floors reminiscent of the perspective grids of the Renaissance lead into sun-drenched landscape. Not simply a recorder of scenes, his subtle images are often composites, made up of several views from different sites. His profound understanding of perspective and fluent analytical draughtsmanship allows him to articulate convincingly real architectural spaces and dramatic vistas. This structural underpinning is overlaid by supple layers of tone and colour which suffuse each image with light and feeling.
Massagrande’s technical virtuosity is allied with a keen intellect. By balancing both these elements he establishes the harmony that he so values in great art.
