artist of such power that in his own time he was surpassed by none; therefore it is that he has not only been always praised by Michelangelo, but in many particulars has been imitated by him."
As a contributor to the progress of the art of painting he is credited by Vasari with two innovations, which may be seen in his paintings in the church of San Domenico at Prato, namely (1) the figures being larger than life, and thereby forming an example to later artists for giving true grandeur to large figures; and (2) certain figures clothed in vestments but little used at that time, whereby the minds of other artists were awakened and began to depart from that sameness which should rather be called obsolete monotony than antique simplicity.
It is noticeable that despite his bad character—which is said to have been the cause of his death by poison—all his work was in religious subjects. He was painting the chapel in the Church of Our Lady at Spoleto when, in 1469, he died.
Paolo Uccello, as he was called, was born at Florence in 1397, and died there in 1475. His real name was Paolo di Dono, but he was so fond of painting animals and birds—especially the latter—that he officially signed himself as Paolo Uccello. He devoted so much of his time, however, to the study of perspective, that both his life and his work suffered thereby. His wife used to relate that he would stand the whole night through beside his writing table, and when she entreated him to come to bed, would only say, "Oh, what a delightful thing is this perspective!" Donatello, the sculptor, is said to have told him that in his ceaseless study of perspective he was leaving the substance for the shadow; but Donatello was not a painter.
Before his time the painters had not studied the question of perspective scientifically. Giotto had made no attempt at it, and Masaccio only came nearer to realising it by chance. Brunelleschi, the architect, laid down its first principles, but it was Uccello who first put these principles into practice in painting, and thereby paved the way for his successors to walk firmly upon.
How he struggled with the difficulties of this vitally important subject may be seen in the large battle-piece at the National Gallery, and however crude and absurd this fine composition may seem at first sight to those who are only accustomed to looking at modern pictures, it must be remembered that Uccello is here struggling, as it were, with a savage monster which to succeeding painters has, through his efforts, been a submissive slave.
This picture is one of four panels executed for the Bartolini family. One of the others is in the Louvre, and a third in the Uffizi. Another—or indeed almost the only other—work of Uccello which is now to be seen is the colossal painting in monochrome (terra-verde) on the wall of the cathedral at Florence. Strangely enough, this equestrian portrait commemorates an Englishman, Sir John Hawkwood, whose name is Italianized in the inscription into Giovanni Acuto. He was born at Sible Hedingham in Essex, the son of a tanner, and adventuring under Edward III. into France, found his way to Florence, where he served the State so well that they interred him, on his death in 1393, at the public expense, and subsequently commissioned Uccello to execute his monument.
With all his devotion to science, the artist has committed the strange mistake of making the horse stand on two legs on the same side, the other two being lifted.
To Masaccio, born in or about 1400, and dying in 1443, we owe a great step in art towards realism. It was he, says Vasari, who first attained the clear perception that painting is only the close imitation, by drawing and colouring simply, of all the forms presented by nature showing them as they are produced by her, and that whoever shall most perfectly effect this may be said to have most nearly approached the summit of excellence. The conviction of this truth, he adds, was the cause of Masaccio's attaining so much knowledge by means of perpetual study that he may be accounted among the first by whom art was in a measure delivered from rudeness and hardness; it was he who led the way to the realisation of beautiful attitudes and movements which were never exhibited by any painter before his day, while he also imparted a life and force to his figures, with a certain roundness and relief which render them truly characteristic and natural. Possessing great correctness of judgment, Masaccio perceived that all figures not sufficiently foreshortened to appear standing firmly on the plane whereon they are placed, but reared up on the points of their feet, must needs be deprived of all grace and excellence in the most important essentials. It is true that Uccello, in his studies of perspective, had helped to lessen this difficulty, but Masaccio managed his foreshortenings with much greater skill (though doubtless with less science) and succeeded better than any artist before him. Moreover, he imparted extreme softness and harmony to his paintings, and was careful to have the carnations of the heads and other nude parts in accordance with the colours of the draperies, which he represented with few and simple folds as they are seen in real life.
Masaccio's principal remaining works are his frescoes in the famous Branacci Chapel at the Carmine convent in Florence. The work of decorating the chapel was begun by Masolino, but finished by Masaccio and Filippo Lippi. Vasari states it as a fact that all the most celebrated sculptors and painters had become excellent and illustrious by studying Masaccio's work in this chapel, and there is good reason to believe that Michelangelo and Raphael profited by their studies there, without mentioning all the names enumerated by Vasari. Seeing how important the influence of Masaccio was destined to become, I have ventured to italicise Vasari's opinions on the causes which operated in creating the Florentine style and in raising the art of painting to heights undreamt of by its earliest pioneers.