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Paolo di Dono (1397-1475) was born in Pratovecchio, near Florence, Italy. The son of a barber-surgeon, he was the apprentice in the workshop of Lorenzo Ghiberti at 10. He was given the name Uccello, meaning bird, because those were the subjects of most of his paintings. He was a member of the official painters guild, Arte dei Medici e degli Speziali. At one point during his career he was commissioned by one of the Medici's to paint large panels in their bed chambers; in 1425 he designed mosaics for the facade of Saint Mark's Cathedral in Venice. Uccello was known for the depth of his paintings, which he created with foreshortening and receeding planes. He was influenced by Donatello and further by the decorative Gothic style. In 1447, he painted The Flood at the Green Cloister of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. Many of his earliest surviving frescoes remain there. On December 10, 1475, Uccello died in Florence.
Paolo Uccello would have been the most delightful and imaginative genius since Giotto that had adorned the art of painting, if he had devoted as much pains to figures and animals as he did to questions of perspective, for, although these are ingenious and good in their way, yet an immoderate devotion to them causes an infinite waste of time, fatigues nature, clogs the mind with difficulties, and frequently renders it sterile where it has previously been fertile and facile.
-Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Painters (1568)
Uccello, somewhat troubled by recession,
Set the plumed warriors in this flowery
place,
And I for one much welcome the digression
That lends a combat atmosphere and
grace.
-Jon Manchip White, 'The Rout of San Romano'
Creation of Eve and Original Sin: detail
1432-1436
Green Cloister, Santa Maria Novella, Florence
Mary's Presentation in the Temple
c. 1435
Duomo, Prato
Equestrian Portrait of Sir John Hawkwood
1436
Duomo Cathedral, Florence
Birth of Christ
1443-1445
Duomo, Florence
Niccolò da Tolentino Leads the Florentine Troops
(incident from The Battle of San Romano)
1450s
National Gallery, London
Saint George and the Dragon
c. 1456
National Gallery, London
The Hunt in the Forest
1460s
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
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