683. THE ROUT OF SAN ROMANO.
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).