Paolo Uccello

Paolo Uccello (1397-1475) was an Italian painter and mathematician of the Early Renaissance, renowned for his pioneering work with perspective and his distinctive, almost fantastical approach to composition. 

Born Paolo di Dono in 1397 in Florence, he later acquired the nickname “Uccello,” meaning “bird” in Italian, due to his fascination with painting animals, particularly birds. Uccello’s career spanned a period of profound change in European art, as artists began to move away from the flat, symbolic forms of medieval painting and embrace realism, depth, and the mathematical principles that would underpin the visual arts for centuries to follow.

Uccello trained under the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti, whose work on the bronze doors of the Florence Baptistery was a landmark in Renaissance art. This formative experience exposed Uccello to the era’s greatest artistic minds and advanced techniques. However, it was in the field of painting that Uccello would make his most significant contributions, particularly in the use of perspective. At a time when artists were just beginning to experiment with the rules of linear perspective, Uccello became obsessed with mastering this technique, seeking to create convincing illusions of three-dimensional space on the two-dimensional surface of a panel or fresco.

One of Uccello’s most celebrated works is the series of three panels depicting the Battle of San Romano, painted between 1435 and 1460. These paintings, now divided between the National Gallery in London, the Uffizi in Florence, and the Louvre in Paris, exemplify his fascination with perspective and geometry. The compositions are filled with foreshortened figures, carefully arranged lances, and fallen horses that draw the viewer’s eye deep into the pictorial space. Yet, despite their mathematical precision, the works also possess a dreamlike, almost surreal quality, with figures appearing stiff and stylised, their faces serene even amid the chaos of battle.

Uccello’s approach to painting was sometimes criticised by contemporaries for being overly concerned with technical matters rather than naturalism or the depiction of human emotion. Giorgio Vasari, the famed biographer of Renaissance artists, wrote that Uccello “would have been the most delightful and original painter of his time if he had devoted as much care to figures and animals as he did to perspective.” Nonetheless, his legacy as a pioneer of perspective is secure, and he is credited with helping to lay the groundwork for later masters such as Piero della Francesca and Leonardo da Vinci.

Beyond the Battle of San Romano, Uccello’s output includes religious frescoes, panel paintings, and designs for stained glass. Notable among these are his frescoes in the Green Cloister of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, where he depicted biblical scenes with the same geometric clarity seen in his secular works.

Paolo Uccello died in 1475, having spent much of his later life in relative obscurity. Today, however, he is recognised as a visionary artist who bridged the gap between the Gothic and Renaissance styles, and whose relentless pursuit of artistic innovation left a lasting mark on the history of Western art.