Background

Paolo Uccello was born in 1397 in Pratovecchio, Italy; the son of Antonia and Dono di Paolo, a barber.

Education

From 1412 until 1416 Uccello was apprenticed to the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti and assisted him on his first bronze doors for the Florentine Baptistery.

Career

Uccello’s first painting was a Saint Anthony between the saints Cosmas and Damianus, a commission for the hospital of Lelmo. By 1424 Paolo was earning his own living as a painter.

From 1425 to 1431 Uccello worked on a mosaics for the facade of St. Mark's, Venice.

Uccello's earliest known paintings, representing the creation of the animals and the creation of man, are part of a large outdoor fresco series in monochrome of Old Testament scenes in the Green Cloister of S. Maria Novella, Florence.

In 1432, the Office of Works asked the Florentine ambassador in Venice to inquire after Uccello’s reputation as an artist. In 1436, he was given the commission for the monochromatic fresco of Sir John Hawkwood.

Uccello is considered to be the author of the frescoes "Stories of the Virgin" and "Story of Saint Stephen" in the Cappella dell'Assunta, Florence. Later, in 1443, he painted the figures on the clock of the Duomo. In that same year and continuing into 1444, he designed a few stained glass windows for the same church. In 1444 Uccello was also at work in Padua, and he travelled to Padua again in 1445 at Donatello’s invitation.

Around 1447-1454 he painted Scenes of Monastic Life for the church San Miniato al Monte, Florence.

Uccello's later work exhibits a paradoxical return to Gothic forms. Three episodes of The Battle of San Romano, commissioned by Cosimo de' Medici (about 1455) to celebrate a victorious skirmish with the Sienese, are the most important examples of this style.

From 1465 to 1469 Uccello lived and worked in Urbino, Italy.

Besides, in 1969 he declared that he could no longer work. His last known work is "The Hunt", about 1470.

Uccello died on 10 December 1475 at the hospital of Florence, at the age of 78. He was buried in his father’s tomb in the Florentine church of Santo Spirito.

Achievements

• Uccello is best known for his three paintings representing the battle of San Romano, which were wrongly entitled the "Battle of Sant' Egidio of 1416" for a long period of time.
  
  Moreover, he has had some influence on twentieth-century art and literary criticism (e.g., in the "Vies imaginaires" by Marcel Schwob, "Uccello le poil" by Antonin Artaud and "O Mundo Como Ideia" by Bruno Tolentino).

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Oculus depicting The Resurrection

  • St.Dominic

  • After a work

  • Hope

  • Roundel with Head

  • Madonna

  • The Adoration of the Child

  • Head of Prophet

  • Adoration of the Child

  • Oculus depicting The Nativity

  • Portrait of Manuel Chrysoloras wearing a hat and holding a book

  • The intervention of Micheletto Cotignola

  • Christ on cross

  • Stoning of St.Stephen

  • Two angels and two devils

  • Perspective Study of Mazzocchio

  • Scene of peace offerings, Noah's drunkenness and shame

  • Head of Prophet

  • Victory over Bernardino della Ciarda

  • Portrait Of A Lady

  • Scene Adoration of the Three Kings

  • Crucifixion

  • St.Paul

  • Miracle Of The Desecrated Host

  • The Adoration of the Kings

  • St.Francis

  • St. George and the Dragon

  • Naked child, since mid body, arms crossed

  • The Hunt in the Forest

  • The Battle of San Romano

  • Scenes of Monastic Life

  • The Battle of San Romano

  • The Battle of San Romano

  • Head of Prophet

  • Portrait of a Young Man

  • Scene Temple, Mary

  • Portrait of man in profile

  • The Adoration of the Magi

  • The Flood

  • Flood

  • Vase in perspective

  • Standing man

  • 24 hours clock

  • Roundel with Head

  • Disputation of St Stephen

  • Scene St. James of Todi

  • Miracle Of The Desecrated Host

  • A Young Lady of Fashion

  • The Annunciation

  • Saints and two children

  • Head of Prophet

  • Portraits of Giotto, Uccello, Donatello, Manetti and Bruno

  • Equestrian Monument of Sir John Hawkwood

  • Portrait of a Lady

  • Procession of re-ordained in a church

  • Saint Jerome and Saint Dominic

  • Portrait of a man

  • St.George and the Dragon

  • Creation of Adam

  • Fresco in the cloister of San Miniato al Monte Loggia in Florence

  • Maria Birth Scene

  • Episodes of the hermit life

Views

Quotations: "This knowledge I pursure is the finest pleasure I have ever known. I could no sooner give it up that I could the very air that I breath."

"What a delightful thing this perspective is!"

Membership

Uccello was admitted to the painters' guild, Compagnia di San Luca, in 1414. In 1415 he joined the official painter's guild of Florence Arte dei Medici e degli Speziali.

Connections

By 1453 Uccello was married to Tommasa Malifici. The same year their son Donato (named after Uccello's friend Donatello), was born. Three years later, in 1456, his wife gave birth to their daughter, Antonia Uccello.

Father:

Dono di Paolo

Mother:

Antonia

Spouse:

Tommasa Malifici

Son:

Donato Uccello

Daughter:

Antonia Uccello

Friend:

Donato di Betto Bardi

References

• Paolo Uccello
  1994
• Paolo Uccello
  1961
• Paolo Uccello: Artist of the Florentine Renaissance Republic This study looks beyond the romantic myth of the solitary artist created by Vasari in the sixteenth century, to document Uccello as an historical figure, to identify his works on the basis of archival evidence, style, and technique, rather than tradition, and to interpret his imagery in the light of the religious, social, political, and aesthetic concerns of the Florentine Republic in the fifteenth century.
• Paolo Uccello