Paolo Uccello
Renaissance pioneer of perspective
Florentine School, Unknown Master, Italian (active late 15th century) ; généralement attribuée à Paolo Uccello · via Wikipedia: Paolo Uccello · Public domain
Paolo Uccello was an Italian Renaissance painter and mathematician known for his pioneering work on visual perspective in art.[1] Three panels depicting the Battle of San Romano are among Paolo Uccello's most celebrated creations.[1] According to Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Uccello had an intense preoccupation with perspective, often spending entire nights in his study attempting to determine the correct vanishing point.[1]
Quick Facts
- Birth name
- Paolo di Dono
- Birthplace
- Pratovecchio, Republic of Florence
- Died
- 10 December 1475
- Place of death
- Florence, Republic of Florence
- Field
- Painting, fresco
- Training
- Lorenzo Ghiberti
- Movement
- Early Renaissance
Facts from the source article.
Life and work
The moniker "Uccello," meaning "little bird," originated from his enthusiasm for depicting avian subjects.[2] Between 1412 and 1416, the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti took Uccello on as an apprentice.[3] Paolo was significantly shaped by Ghiberti's narrative approach, which combined late-Gothic elements with sculptural composition.[4] The three well-known panels illustrating the Battle of San Romano were created by Uccello around the middle of the 1450s, intended for the Palazzo Medici.[3]
Uccello had entered into marriage with Tommasa Malifici by the year 1453.[5] To give his paintings an illusion of depth, Uccello employed perspective techniques.[1]
What the cited sources add
Vasari's biography, written 75 years after Paolo's death, is one of the few sources for his life.[6] According to Vasari, Uccello's first painting was a Saint Anthony between the saints Cosmas and Damianus for the hospital of Lelmo.[7] Uccello's daughter Antonia was a Carmelite nun whom Vasari called "a daughter who knew how to draw"[5] Some of Uccello's studies of perspective foreshortening of the torus are preserved.[8]
Tax records from Uccello suggest a 1397 birth year, yet in 1446 he stated he was born in 1396.[6]
References
- Wikipedia, "Paolo Uccello" (CC BY-SA 4.0) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Paolo Uccello" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Private Life of a Masterpiece, BBC TV; Borsi, Franco & Borsi, Stefano. Paolo Uccello. pp. 15, 34. London: Thames & Hudson, 1994. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Paolo Uccello" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Lloyd, Christopher. "Uccello, Paolo." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Paolo Uccello" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Private Life of a Masterpiece BBC TV (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Paolo Uccello" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Lloyd, Christopher. "Uccello, Paolo." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web.; Echols, Anne; Marty Williams. An annotated index of medieval women. Markus Wiener Publishers, 1992, p. 61. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Paolo Uccello" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: His tax declarations for some years indicate that he was born in 1397, although in 1446 he claimed to have been born in 1396. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Paolo Uccello" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Vasari, "The Lives of the Artists", OUP Oxford, 1998-04-02 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Paolo Uccello" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Emmer, Michele. "Art and Mathematics: The Platonic Solids." Leonardo 15(4): 277-282 (Autumn, 1982). (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Paolo Uccello (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
More in Artists & Composers
Elsewhere in Historical Figures
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced