Paolo Uccello 1

Paolo Uccello

Paolo Uccello

Portrait of a Lady (c.1450)Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Birth name Paolo di Dono

Born Pratovecchio, Italy

Died December 10, 1475 (aged 77–78)Florence, Italy

Nationality Italian

Field Painting, Fresco

Training Lorenzo Ghiberti

Movement Early Renaissance

Works Funerary Monument to Sir John Hawkwood, Saint George and the Dragon, The Battle of San Romano

Paolo Uccello (1397 – 10 December 1475), born Paolo di Dono, was an Italian painter and a mathematician whowas notable for his pioneering work on visual perspective in art. Giorgio Vasari in his book Lives of the Artists wrotethat Uccello was obsessed by his interest in perspective and would stay up all night in his study trying to grasp theexact vanishing point. He used perspective in order to create a feeling of depth in his paintings and not, as hiscontemporaries, to narrate different or succeeding stories. His best known works are the three paintings representingthe battle of San Romano (for a long time these were wrongly entitled the "Battle of Sant' Egidio of 1416").Paolo worked in the Late Gothic tradition, and emphasized colour and pageantry rather than the Classical realismthat other artists were pioneering. His style is best described as idiosyncratic, and he left no school of followers. Hehas had some influence on twentieth century art (including the New Zealand painter Melvin Day) and literarycriticism (e.g., in the "Vies imaginaires" by Marcel Schwob, "Uccello le poil" by Antonin Artaud and "O MundoComo Ideia" by Bruno Tolentino).

LifeThe sources for Paolo Uccello’s life are few: Giorgio Vasari’s biography, written 75 years after Paolo’s death, and afew contemporary official documents. Uccello was born in Pratovecchio in 1397.[1] His tax declarations for someyears indicate that he was born in 1397, but in 1446 he claimed to be born in 1396.[2] His nickname Uccello camefrom his fondness for painting birds. His father, Dono di Paolo, was a barber-surgeon from Pratovecchio nearArezzo; his mother, Antonia, was a high-born Florentine.At the age of ten, he was apprenticed to the famous sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti, designer of the doors of the Florence Baptistery, whose workshop was the premier centre for Florentine art at the time. Ghiberti's late-Gothic, narrative style and sculptural composition greatly influenced Paolo. It was also around this time that Paolo began his lifelong

Paolo Uccello 2

friendship with Donatello. In 1414 Uccello was admitted to the painters' guild Compagnia di San Luca and just oneyear later, in 1415, he joined the official painter's guild of Florence Arte dei Medici e degli Speziali. By the mid1420s the young Uccello probably left Ghiberti's workshop. He stayed on good terms with his master and may havebeen privy to the designs for Ghiberti's second set of Baptistery doors, The Gates of Paradise. These featured a battlescene, "that might well have impressed itself in the mind of the young Uccello ", and thus influenced The Battle ofSan Romano.[3]

According to Vasari, Uccello’s first painting was a Saint Anthony between the saints Cosmas and Damianus, acommission for the hospital of Lelmo. Next he painted two figures in the convent of Annalena. Shortly afterwards hepainted three frescoes with scenes from the life of Saint Francis above the left door of the Santa Trinita church. Forthe Santa Maria Maggiore church he painted a fresco of the Annunciation. In this fresco, he painted a large buildingwith columns in perspective. Vasari writes that people thought this was a great and beautiful achievement.Paolo painted the Lives of the Church Fathers in the cloisters of the church of San Miniato, on a hill overlookingFlorence. For this fresco he used unusual colours (blue pastures, red bricks and different colours for the buildings) asa protest against his monotonous meals served by the abbot: cheese pies and cheese soup. In the end Paolo felt somiserable that he ran away. He only finished the job after the abbot promised to serve him normal meals.Uccello was asked to paint a number of scenes of distempered animals for the house of the Medici. His depiction ofa fierce lion fighting with a venom-spouting snake was especially appreciated by Vasari. Uccello loved to paintanimals and he kept a large number of pictures of all kinds of animals, especially birds, at home. Because he was sofond of birds, he was aptly nicknamed Paolo Uccelli (Paul of the birds).By 1424 Paolo was earning his own living as a painter. In that year he painted episodes of the Creation andexpulsion for the Green Cloister (Chiostro Verde) of Santa Maria Novella in Florence (now badly damaged), provinghis artistic maturity. Again, he was able to paint in a lively manner a large number of animals. As he succeeded inpainting trees in their natural colours, in contrast with many of his predecessors, he began to acquire a reputation forpainting landscapes. He continued with scenes from the Deluge, the story of Noah's Ark, Noah's sacrifice and Noah'sdrunkenness. These scenes brought him great fame in Florence.Around this time he was taught geometry by Antonio Manetti.

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Funerary Monument to Sir John Hawkwood

In 1425, Uccello travelled to Venice, where he worked on themosaics for the façade of San Marco (all these works have beenlost). Some suggest he visited Rome with his friend Donatellobefore returning to Florence in 1431. He also painted somefrescoes in the Prato Cathedral and Bologna.

In 1432 the Office of Works asked the Florentine ambassador inVenice to enquire after Uccello’s reputation as an artist. Uccelloremained in Florence for most of the rest of his life, executingworks for various churches and patrons, most notably the Duomo.In 1436 he was given the commission for the monochromaticfresco of Sir John Hawkwood. In this equestrian monument heshowed his keen interest in perspective. The condottiere and hishorse are presented as if the fresco was a sculpture, seen frombelow.

If, as is widely thought, he is the author of the frescoes Stories ofthe Virgin and Story of Saint Stephen in the Cappella dell'Assunta,Florence, then he would have visited nearby Prato sometimebetween 1435 and 1440. In 1443, he painted the figures on theclock of the Duomo. In the same year and in 1444 he designed afew stained glass windows for the same church. In 1444 he wasalso at work in Padua, and he travelled to Padua again in 1445 at

Donatello’s invitation.

Saint George and the Dragon (c. 1470), showing Uccello's Gothicinfluences.

Back in Florence in 1446, he painted the GreenStations of the Cross, again for the cloister of thechurch Santa Maria Novella. Around 1447–1454 hepainted Scenes of Monastic Life for the church SanMiniato al Monte, Florence.

Around 1450–1456 he painted his three most famouspaintings The Battle of San Romano, the victory of theFlorentine army over the Sienese in 1432, for thePalazzo Medici in Florence. The extraordinarilyforeshortened forms extending in many planesaccentuate Uccello's virtuosity as a draftsman, andprovides a controlled visual structure to the chaos ofthe battle scene.

Paolo Uccello 4

Niccolò da Tolentino at the Battle of San Romano, c. 1438–1440. Egg tempera withwalnut oil and linseed oil on poplar. 181.6 x 320 cm. London: National Gallery.

Uccello was married to TommasaMalifici by 1453, because in that yearDonato (named after Donatello) wasborn, and in 1456 his wife gave birth toAntonia.[4]

In 1465, Uccello was in Urbino withhis son Donato, where he was engageduntil 1469, working for theConfraternity of Corpus Domini, abrotherhood of laymen. He painted thepredella for their new altarpiece withthe Miracle of the Profaned Host. (Themain panel representing the"Communion of the Apostles" wascommissioned to Justus van Ghent and finished in 1474.) Uccello's predella comprises six meticulous, naturalisticscenes related to the antisemitic myth of host desecration, based on a supposed event in Paris in 1290. It has beensuggested that the subject of the main panel, on which Duke Frederick of Montefeltro of Urbino appears in thebackground conversing with an Oriental, is related to the antisemitic intention of the predella. Federico allowed asmall Jewish community to live in Urbino. [5] Not all these scenes are unanimously attributed to Paolo Uccello.

A scene in Paolo Uccello's Corpus Domini predella (c. 1465-1468), set in a Jewishpawnbroker's home. Blood in the background emanates from the Host, which the

moneylender has attempted to cook, and seeps under the door. This story first entered theItalian literary tradition via Giovanni Villani (c. 1280–1348) and his Nuova Cronica.

In his Florentine tax return of August1469 he declared: “I find myself oldand ailing, my wife is ill, and I can nolonger work.” In his last years, he wasa lonesome, forgotten man, afraid ofhardship in life. His last known work isThe Hunt, c. 1470. He made histestament on 11 November 1475 anddied shortly afterwards at the age of 78on 10 December 1475 at the hospital ofFlorence. He was buried in his father’stomb in the Florentine church of SantoSpirito.

With his precise, analytical mind hetried to apply a scientific method todepict objects in three-dimensional space. In particular, some of his studies of the perspective foreshortening of thetorus are preserved, and one standard display of drawing skill was his depictions of the mazzocchio.[6] Theperspective in his paintings has influenced famous painters such as Piero della Francesca, Albrecht Dürer andLeonardo da Vinci, to name a few.

His daughter Antonia Uccello (1456–1491)[7] was a Carmelite nun, whom Giorgio Vasari called "a daughter whoknew how to draw". She was even noted as a "pittoressa", a paintress, on her death certificate. Her style and her skillremains a mystery as none of her work is extant.

Paolo Uccello 5

WorksPope-Hennessy is far more conservative than the Italian authors: he attributes some of the works below to a "PratoMaster" and a "Karlsruhe Master". Most of the dates in the list (taken from Borsi and Borsi) are derived fromstylistic comparison rather than from documentation.

Clock in the Duomo, Florence.

Marble mosaic showing a small stellated dodecahedron and a ring ofhexagonal prisms, on the floor of St Mark's Basilica, Venice.

• Annunciation (c. 1420–1425) - Ashmolean Museum,

Oxford

• Creation and Fall (c.1424–1425) - Lunette and lower

section, Chiostro Verde, Santa Maria Novella, Florence

• Adoration of the Magi (c. 1431–1432) - Staatliche

Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe

• St George and the Dragon (c. 1431) - National Gallery

of Victoria, Melbourne

• Quarate Predella (c. 1433) - Museo diocesano di Santo

Stefano al Ponte, Florence

• Frescoes in the Capella dell' Assunta (c.1434–1435) - Duomo, Prato

• Nun-Saint with Two Children (c.1434–1435) -Contini-Bonacosi Collection, Florence

• Funerary Monument to Sir John Hawkwood (c.1436) - Duomo, Florence

• The Battle of San Romano, consisting of:• Battle of San Romano: Niccolò da Tolentino (c.

1450–1456) - National Gallery, London

• Battle of San Romano: Bernadino della Ciardaunhorsed (c. 1450–1456) - Galleria degli Uffizi,

Florence

• Battle of San Romano: Micheletto da Cotignola(c.1450) - Musée du Louvre, Paris

• St George and the Dragon (c. 1439–1440) - Musée

Jacquemart-André, Paris

• Clock Face with Four Prophets/Evangelists (1443) -Duomo, Florence

• Resurrection (1443–1444) - stained glass window,

Duomo, Florence

• Nativity (1443–1444) - stained glass window, Duomo,

Florence

• Story of Noah (c. 1447) - lunette and lower section, Chiostro Verde, Santa Maria Novella, Florence

• Scenes of Monastic Life (c. 1447–1454) - S. Miniato al Monte, Florence

• Saint George and the Dragon (c. 1450-55) - National Gallery, London

• Crucifixion (c. 1457–1458) - Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid

• Life of the Holy Fathers (c. 1460–1465) - Accademia, Florence

• Miracle of the Profaned Host (1467–1468) - predella, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Palazzo Ducale, Urbino)

• The Hunt in the Forest (c. 1470) -- Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

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References[1] Private Life of a Masterpiece, BBC TV[2] Borsi, Franco & Stefano. Paolo Uccello. pp. 15, 34. London: Thames & Hudson, 1994.[3] Private Life of a Masterpiece BBC TV[4] Oxford Art Online[5] Katz, Dana E., The contours of tolerance: Jews and the Corpus Domini Altarpiece in Urbino (http:/ / findarticles. com/ p/ articles/ mi_m0422/

is_4_85/ ai_111738112/ pg_1) The Art Bulletin:85 (December 2003)[6] Emmer, Michele. "Art and Mathematics: The Platonic Solids." Leonardo 15(4): 277-282 (Autumn, 1982).[7] Echols, Anne; Marty Williams. An annotated index of medieval women. Markus Wiener Publishers, 1992, p. 61. ISBN 0910129274

Sources• Giorgio Vasari's life of Paolo Uccello translated by George Bull in Lives of the Artists, Part 1. Penguin Classics,

1965.• D'Ancona, Paola. Paolo Uccello. New York: McGraw Hill, 1961.• Barolsky, Paul. "The Painter Who Almost Became a Cheese" Virginia Quarterly Review, 70/1 (Winter 1994).

(http:/ / www. vqronline. org/ viewmedia. php/ prmMID/ 7377)• Borsi, Franco & Stefano. Paolo Uccello. London: Thames & Hudson, 1994. (a massive monograph)• Borsi, Stefano. Paolo Uccello. Art Dossier. Florence: Giunti, nd.• Carli, Enzo. All the Paintings of Paolo Uccello. The Complete Library of World Art. London: Oldbourne, 1963.

(originally published in Italian in the 1950s)• Paolieri, Annarita. Paolo Uccello, Domenico Veneziano, Andrea del Castagno. Library of Great Masters. New

York: SCALA/Riverside, 1991.• Pope-Hennessy, John. Paolo Uccello: Complete Edition. 2nd ed. London: Phaidon, 1969. (the other important

English-language monograph)• Marilyn Aronberg Lavin (1967). "The Altar of Corpus Domini in Urbino: Paolo Uccello, Joos Van Ghent, Piero

della Francesca" (http:/ / jstor. org/ stable/ 3048425). Art Bulletin 49 (1): 1–24. doi:10.2307/3048425.•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed (1913).

"Paolo Uccello". Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company.

External links• Excerpts from Vasari's Life of Paolo Uccello (http:/ / easyweb. easynet. co. uk/ giorgio. vasari/ uccello/ uccello.

htm)• Web Gallery of Art: Paolo Uccello (http:/ / www. wga. hu/ frames-e. html?/ bio/ u/ uccello/ biograph. html)• Florence Art Guide: Paolo Uccello (http:/ / www. mega. it/ eng/ egui/ pers/ pucc. htm)• www.paolouccello.org - Works by Paolo Uccello (http:/ / www. paolouccello. org)• Paolo Uccello Homepage (http:/ / www. fionline. it/ paolouccello/ ) (in Italian)• Paolo Uccello's Polyhedra (http:/ / www. georgehart. com/ virtual-polyhedra/ uccello. html)• Ron Schuler's Parlour Tricks: Getting Some Perspective (http:/ / rsparlourtricks. blogspot. com/ 2005/ 12/

getting-some-perspective. html)

Article Sources and Contributors 7

Article Sources and ContributorsPaolo Uccello  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=430659402  Contributors: AWhiteC, Amandajm, Appraiser, Attilios, Austisle, Awadewit, B.Wind, Baroque1700,Bernardhendriks, Bill Thayer, CARAVAGGISTI, Ceoil, Connormah, Conversion script, D6, Darth Panda, Discospinster, Epbr123, Ewulp, FJPB, FeanorStar7, Fram, Frankenpuppy, Gareth EKegg, Ghirlandajo, Gianfranco, Gnevin, Gryffindor, Hoof Hearted, Iacobus, J JMesserly, JNBSmith, JWPowell, Jennavecia, Jlittlet, JoJan, Johnbod, Joseph Solis in Australia, Jpbowen,Kangaru99, Karoliuta3, Kmaciver, Kpjas, Krivic, Lanma726, Larry_Sanger, Leeearnest, Leondumontfollower, Lightmouse, LiniShu, Luwilt, Mandarax, Mattissa, Modernist, Ncik, NeofelisNebulosa, Nick UA, Nihiltres, Nqwert, OohBunnies!, PBS-AWB, Peloneous, PericlesofAthens, Pethan, Piano non troppo, Raven in Orbit, Razorflame, Rbrwr, Rich Farmbrough, Ricky81682,RogDel, S3000, Sailko, Savidan, Sayerslle, Shlishke, Sjc, Sketchee, Sparkit, Stepshep, Tamfang, Tcrombez, The Thing That Should Not Be, Tohd8BohaithuGh1, Tomruen, Topbanana, Touch thedoodah, Tyrenius, Uncle Milty, Uppland, Utcursch, Vald, Wizardman, Woohookitty, 107 anonymous edits

Image Sources, Licenses and ContributorsFile:Uccello Portrait of a Lady MET.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Uccello_Portrait_of_a_Lady_MET.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Master of theCastello Nativity (Italian, Florentine, active about 1445–75). Was attributed to Paolo UccelloImage:Paolo Uccello 044.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Paolo_Uccello_044.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Emijrp, Frank C. Müller, G.dallorto, Sailko,WarburgImage:Paolo Uccello 047b.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Paolo_Uccello_047b.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Eugene a, G.dallorto, Gryffindor, SailkoFile:San Romano Battle (Paolo Uccello, London) 01.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:San_Romano_Battle_(Paolo_Uccello,_London)_01.jpg  License: PublicDomain  Contributors: see filename or categoryImage:Uccelo host burning.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Uccelo_host_burning.jpg  License: GNU Free Documentation License  Contributors: Creator:PaoloUccelloImage:Firenze.Duomo.clock.JPG  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Firenze.Duomo.clock.JPG  License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Contributors: selfFile:Marble floor mosaic Basilica of St Mark Vencice.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Marble_floor_mosaic_Basilica_of_St_Mark_Vencice.jpg  License: PublicDomain  Contributors: Paolo UccelloFile:Wikisource-logo.svg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikisource-logo.svg  License: logo  Contributors: Nicholas Moreau

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