THE OLDEST PAINTERS AND THEIR PERSPECTIVE (UCCELLO, 1472).
The older class of mediæval painters of sacred subjects often showed great ignorance of perspective. One memorable instance was that of Paolo Uccello, who died in 1472, and who had acquired great reputation for his pictures. His last great commission was one to paint St. Thomas searching for the wound in the side of Christ; and the painting was to be above the door of the church in the Mercato Veichio in Florence, dedicated to that saint. Paolo was proud of this commission, and told his friends that he would lay out all his strength on this picture, and display the fruit of his experience and insight in its design. His first step was to erect a close inclosure of planks all round the wall, so as to keep off the prying and curious. He had been working some time in secret when another artist, Donato, met him in the street and asked what sort of work this was that he was so closely engaged upon. Paolo said, with some self-satisfaction, that Donato would see it in due time. Some time later the same Donato accidentally passed and saw Paolo Uccello uncovering this masterpiece, and after a courteous salutation Paolo was eager to know what his brother artist would say to it. Donato looked very minutely at it, and then said, “Why, Paolo, you are uncovering your picture just at the time you should be shutting it up from the public view.” These words stabbed the painter to the heart; for on certain things being pointed out by the critic, he saw he had made a grievous mistake, and that the public would cover him with derision instead of applause. This fate he could not face, and from that time he shut himself up in his house so as to study once more the laws of perspective. And Vasari says this picture killed him, for the faults in it weighed on his spirits, which he never recovered. The painting has disappeared in modern times.
THE MONKS OVER-FEEDING THEIR ARTIST WITH CHEESE (UCCELLO, 1472).
The painter Paolo Uccello was engaged by the monks of San Miniato, near Florence, to paint the lives of the Holy Fathers in one of their cloisters. The work was to be partly coloured and principally in terra verde, and it is said he rather misplaced his colours, making his fields blue, his cities red, and the buildings all colours. While he was engaged in this work the abbot gave him scarcely anything to eat but cheese, of which the painter grew so speedily sick, that, being of a timid nature, he went off clandestinely and did not return, and he gave no explanation. The abbot and the monks sent to him, to ask why he did not return; but he gave no answer, and if he met them in the street he made off as fast as he could in another direction. At last one of the monks determined to solve the mystery, waylaid him, got speech of him, and put the same unanswered question. Paolo replied, “You have so murdered me, that I not only run away from you, but dare not stop near the shop of a carpenter or even pass by one. And all this comes of your abbot’s mismanagement; for, what with his cheese pies and his cheese soup, he has made me swallow such a mountain of cheese that I am all turned into cheese myself, and I tremble lest the carpenters rush out, seize, and put me into their glue-pot. I am quite sure that if I had stayed with you longer I should have been no more Paolo, but mere cheese.” When the monk told the other monks this story, they roared with laughter and begged their abbot to persuade the painter to return, and then to feed him well on other delicacies.
A CLUMSY CRUCIFIX BEFORE THE DYING ARTIST (GROSSO, 1488).
Nanni Grosso was a sculptor at Florence about 1488. One of his invariable rules was, that he would never execute any work in a convent unless the monks left the door of the wine cellar open, so that he could go in and take a drink when he pleased without asking their leave. When Nanni was on his deathbed in the hospital of Santa Marina Nuova, the nurses placed a wooden crucifix before him which was clumsy and ill executed. He implored them to take it out of his sight and bring him one by Donato, declaring that if they did not take that one from before him he should die in despair, so greatly did the sight of ill-executed works of art excite him.
A POOR ARTIST KILLED BY A SIGHT OF GOLD (1513).
Pinturicchio, a painter of Perugia, who had painted and decorated many churches, but without ever securing great profit to himself, was in his old days engaged to paint a picture of the Virgin at the convent of San Francesco, in Siena, and a room was appropriated to his use by the monks and given up to him entirely. They took away all the furniture so as to give him space, leaving nothing but a very massive old chest which was too heavy to be removed. The painter being arbitrary and domineering, soon made such a clamour about this chest being in his way, and he so worried the poor monks, that in their desperation they resolved to remove it rather than be any longer abused. So they dragged it out a little with immense difficulty, but in straining it one of its sides gave way and a sum of five hundred golden ducats tumbled out, which seemed so vast a collection of valuable material to our artist, and he was so transfixed with horror and remorse as he thought of his inconceivable folly in having thrown all this fortune, as it were, away, that he took to his bed and never rallied, dying shortly afterwards of a broken heart.
AN ARTIST DECEIVING THE BIRDS AND BEASTS (MONSIGNORI, 1519).