| Paolo
Uccello |
Portrait of a Lady (c.1450)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
| Birth name |
Paolo di Dono |
| Born |
1397
Florence |
| Died |
10 December 1475
Florence |
| Nationality |
Florentine |
| Field |
painting |
| Training |
Lorenzo Ghiberti |
| Movement |
International Gothic |
Paolo Uccello (born Paolo di Dono, 1397 – December
10 1475) was an Italian painter who was notable for his
pioneering work on visual perspective in art. Giorgio Vasari in his book Lives of the Artists wrote that Uccello was obsessed
by his interest in perspective and would stay up all night in his study trying to grasp the exact vanishing point. He used
perspective in order to create a feeling of depth in his paintings and not, as his contemporaries, to narrate different or
succeeding stories.
His best known works are the three paintings representing the
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 realism that other artists were pioneering. His style is best described as idiosyncratic, and he left
no school of followers. He had some influence on twentieth century art and literary criticism.
Life
The sources for Paolo Uccello’s life are few: Giorgio Vasari’s biography, written 75
years after Paolo’s death, and a few contemporary official documents.
Uccello was born in Florence in 1397. His nickname Uccello came from his fondness for painting birds. His father, Dono di Paolo, was a barber-surgeon from Pratovecchio near Arezzo, his mother’s name was
Antonia.
At the age of ten, Paolo was apprenticed to the famous sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti;
Ghiberti's 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 friendship with Donatello. In 1414 Uccello was admitted to the painters' guild
Compagnia di San Lucca and just one year later, in 1415, he joined the official painter's guild of Florence Arte dei
Medici e degli Speziali.
According to Vasari, Paolo's first painting was a Saint Anthony between the saints
Cosmas and Damianus, a commission for the hospital of Lelmo. Next he painted two figures in the convent of Annalena. Shortly
afterwards he painted three frescoes with scenes from the life of Saint Francis above the left door of the Santa Trinita
church. For the Santa Maria Maggiore church he painted a fresco of the
Annunciation. In this fresco, he painted a large building with 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 overlooking Florence. For this fresco he used unusual colours (blue
pastures, red bricks and different colours for the buildings) as a protest against his monotonous meals served by the abbot:
cheese pies and cheese soup. In the end Paolo felt so miserable that he ran away. He only finished the job after the abbot
promised to serve him normal meals.
(Top) : Creation of the Animals and Creation of Adam; (Below) Creation of Eve and the
Expulsion
Paolo was asked to paint a number of distempered scenes of animals for the house of the Medici. His depiction of a fierce lion
fighting with a venom-spouting snake was especially appreciated by Vasari. Ucello loved to paint animals and he kept a large
number of pictures of all kinds of animals, especially birds, at home. Because he was so fond 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 and expulsion
for the Green Cloister (Chiostro Verde) of Santa Maria Novella in
Florence (now badly damaged), proving his artistic maturity. Again, he was able to paint in a lively manner a large number of
animals. As he succeeded in painting trees in their natural colours, in contrast with many of his predecessors, he began to
acquire a reputation for painting landscapes. He continued with scenes from the Deluge, the story
of Noah's Ark, Noah's sacrifice and Noah's drunkenness. These scenes brought him great fame
in Florence.
Around this time he was taught geometry by Manetti.
In 1425 Uccello travelled to Venice, where he worked on the mosaics for the façade of
San Marco (all these works have been lost).
Some suggest he visited Rome with his friend Donatello before returning to Florence in 1431. He
also painted some frescoes in the Prato Cathedral and Bologna.
In 1432 the Office of Works asked the Florentine ambassador in Venice to enquire after Uccello’s reputation as an artist.
Uccello remained in Florence for most of the rest of his life, executing works for various churches and patrons, most notably the
Duomo. In 1436 he was given the commission for the monochromatic fresco of Sir
John Hawkwood. In this equestrian monument he showed his keen interest in
perspective. The condottiere and his horse
are presented as if the fresco was a sculpture, seen from below.
If, as is widely thought, he is the author of the frescoes Stories of the Virgin and Story of Saint Stephen in
the Cappella dell'Assunta, Florence, then he would have visited nearby Prato sometime between 1435
and 1440.
In 1443 He painted the figures on the clock of the Duomo. In the same year and in 1444 he designed a few stained glass windows
for the same church. In 1444 he is also at work in Padua.
A gothicizing tendency of Uccello's art is nowhere more apparent than in
Saint George and the Dragon (c. 1456).
In 1445 he travelled to Padua at Donatello’s invitation.
Back in Florence in 1446, he painted the Green Stations of the Cross, again for the cloister of the church Santa Maria
Novella. Around 1447–1454 he painted Scenes of Monastic Life for the church San Miniato al Monte, Florence.
Around 1450–1456 he painted his three most famous paintings The Battle of San Romano, the victory of the Florentine
army over the Sienese in 1432, for the Palazzo Medici in Florence. The daring perspectival form gives an appearance of depth to
the battle scene.
Paolo Uccello.
Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino at the Battle of San Romano, c. 1438–1440. Egg tempera with walnut oil and
linseed oil on poplar. 181.6 x 320 cm. London:
National Gallery.
Uccello was married to Tomassa Malifici by 1453, because in that year Donato (named after Donatello) was born, and in 1456 his
wife gave birth to Antonia.
In 1465 Uccello was in Urbino with his son Donato, where he was engaged until 1469 working for
the Confraternity of Corpus Domini, a brotherhood of laymen. He painted a predella with the
Miracle of the Profaned Host part of a monumental altarpiece. The main panel was finished
by Justus van Ghent with a scene from the "Communion of the Apostles" in 1474.
Ucello's predella consisted of six scenes (with meticulous naturalistic interiors) related to the antismeitic legend of the
"Miracle of the Profaned Host" that had taken place in Paris in 1290. In one of them he depicted Jews burning at the stake the
blasphemous act of desecrating the Holy Host. This was an effort by Duke
Frederick of Montefeltro of Urbino to vilify the Jews (while tolerating Jewish
activity in Urbino). Not all these scenes are unanimously attributed to Paolo Uccello.
In his Florentine tax return of August 1469 he declared: “I find myself old and ailing, my wife is ill, and I can no longer
work.” In his last years, he was a lonesome, forgotten man, afraid of hardship in life.
His last known work is The Hunt, c. 1470.
He made his testament on 11 November 1475 and died shortly afterwards at the age of 78 on 10 December 1475 at the hospital of
Florence. He was buried in his father’s tomb in the Florentine church of Santo
Spirito.
With his precise, analytical mind he tried to apply a scientific method to depict objects in three-dimensional space. In
particular, some of his studies of the perspective foreshortening of the torus are preserved, and
he realised the thus acquired insights in his paintings in form of the mazzocchio.[1] The perspective
in his paintings has influenced famous painters such as Piero della Francesca,
Albrecht Dürer and Leonardo da Vinci, to name
a few.
His daughter Antonia Uccello (1446–1491) was a Carmelite nun, whom Giorgio Vasari called "a daughter who knew how to draw". She was even noted as a "pittoressa", a
paintress, on her death certificate. Her style and her skill remains a mystery as none of her work is extant.
Works
Pope-Hennessy is far more conservative than the Italian authors: he attributes
some of the works below to a "Prato Master" and a "Karlsruhe Master". Most of the dates in the list (taken from Borsi and Borsi)
are derived from stylistic comparison rather than from documentation.
Clock in the Duomo, Florence.
- 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 Arcivescovile di Castello, Florence
- Frescoes in the Capella dell' Assunta (c. 1434–1435) - Duomo,
Prato
- Nun-Saint with Two Children (c.1434–1435) - Contini-Bonacosi Collection, Florence
- Equestrian Monument to 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 Ciarda unhorsed (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
References
- ^ Emmer, Michele. "Art and Mathematics: The Platonic Solids." Leonardo 15(4):
277-282 (Autumn, 1982).
- 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).
- 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". Art Bulletin 49: 1-24.
- Katz, Dana E. (December 2003). "The contours of tolerance: Jews and the Corpus Domini
Altarpiece in Urbino". The Art Bulletin 85.
- This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
External links
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