_Paolo Uccello_ (Florentine: 1397-1475).
This painter was originally brought up as a goldsmith, and
was one of the assistants of Lorenzo Ghiberti in preparing
the first pair of the celebrated gates of the Baptistery. It
is doubtful with whom he learnt to paint. He introduced new
enthusiasms and interests into the art, as explained below
in the notes on this picture. The majority of his works have
perished. He was employed principally in Florence, where
frescoes by him may be seen in one of the cloisters of S. Maria
Novella. At Padua he also executed some works which are said
by Vasari to have been greatly admired by Andrea Mantegna.
Other works by him are referred to below. The present picture
is, however, the most attractive of his extant productions. He
seems to have been a man of original character, and Vasari's
life of him is very good reading. The biographer's statement
about his poverty seems to be exaggerated, for documents exist
showing that he lived in a house which he had purchased.
A picture of great interest in itself, both from a technical and from
a moral point of view, and also deserving of note in the history of
painting. (1) It shows the beginning of scientific "perspective"
(_i.e._ the science of representing the form and dimensions of things
as they really _look_, instead of as we conceive them by touch or
measurement to _be_); the painter is pleased with the new discovery,
and sets himself, as it were, the hardest problem in perspective
he can find. Note the "foreshortening" of the figure on the ground
(objects are said to be "foreshortened" when viewed so that we see
their breadth, and not their length--for example, the leg of Titian's
Ganymede in No. 32). So devoted was Paolo to his science that he became
(says Vasari) more needy than famous. His wife used to complain to her
friends that he sat up all night studying, and that the only answer she
ever got to her remonstrances was, "What a delightful thing is this
perspective!" The sculptor Donatello is also said to have remonstrated
with our painter: "Ah, Paolo, with this perspective of thine, thou
art leaving the substance for the shadow." Paolo was fond, too, of
geometry, which he read with Manetti. He had another and a softer
passion: he was so fond of birds that he was called Paul of the Birds
("Uccelli"--his family name being Paolo di Dono), and he had numbers
of painted birds, cats, and dogs in his house, being too poor to keep
the living creatures. (2) This picture is remarkable, secondly, as the
earliest Italian work in the Gallery containing portraits, and the
first which endeavours to represent a contemporary event.
Our picture has hitherto been supposed to represent the battle of
Sant' Egidio (1417) in which Carlo Malatesta and his nephew Galeazzo
were taken prisoners by Braccio di Montone, lord of Perugia. Other
battle-pieces belonging to the same series are in the Uffizi and the
Louvre respectively; and it has been shown by Mr. Herbert P. Horne
(_Monthly Review_, October, 1901) that these are the three pictures
of the "Rout of San Romano," painted by Uccello for the palace of
Cosimo de' Medici, as described in an inventory of 1492. The principal
figure is Niccolo Maurucci da Tolentino, the leader of the Florentine
forces, directing the attack against the Sienese at San Romano in 1432.
"He is represented on horseback fully armed, except for his helmet,
with the baton of command in his right hand. He wears on his head a
rich _cappuccio_, or head-dress, of gold and purple damask; while his
bascinet, covered with purple velvet, is carried by his helmet-bearer,
who rides by his side [the 'young Malatesta' of previous descriptions].
Above the figure of Tolentino waves his standard powdered with his
impress, the 'groppo di Salomone,' a knot of curious and intricate
form, in a white field." The impress may be seen again, as Mr. Horne
points out, in the memorial portrait of Tolentino by Andrea del
Castagno in the Cathedral of Florence.
From the moral point of view, we may see in this picture, says Ruskin,
what a gentleman's view of war is, as distinguished from a boor's,
with mean passion and low fury on every face. "Look at the young
Malatesta,[151] riding into the battle of Sant' Egidio. His uncle
Carlo, the leader of the army, a grave man of about sixty, has just
given orders for the knights to close: two have pushed forward with
lowered lances, and the _mêlée_ has begun only a few yards in front;
but the young knight, riding at his uncle's side, has not put his
helmet on, nor intends doing so yet. Erect he sits, and quiet, waiting
for his captain's order to charge; calm as if he were at a hawking
party, only more grave; his golden hair wreathed about his proud white
brow, as about a statue's" (_Modern Painters_, vol. v. pt. ix. ch.
viii. § 9). Another point to notice is the type this picture affords
of "the neglect of the perfectness of the earth's beauty, by reason of
the passions of men. The armies meet on a country road beside a hedge
of wild roses; the tender red flowers tossing above their helmets, and
glowing between the lowered lances." In like manner, adds Ruskin, in
the Middle Ages, when men lived for safety in walled cities, "the whole
of Nature only shone for man between the tossing of helmet-crests; and
sometimes I cannot but think of the trees of the earth as capable of a
kind of sorrow, in that imperfect life of theirs, as they opened their
innocent leaves in the warm spring-time, in vain for men; and all along
the dells of England her beeches cast their dappled shade only where
the outlaw drew his bow, and the king rode his careless chase" (_Modern
Painters_, vol. v. pt. vi. ch. i. § 6).