Talk:Paolo Uccello

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Visual arts, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to visual arts on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
B Class: This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Biography Portal
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
This article is supported by the Arts and Entertainment work group.

[edit] September 2005

I have added a stumpy and naive run-through of his famous painting's life. It is missing some vital names, and could do with some TLC. Better than nothing, at least.

I'm unsure why there is some (incorrect) information on the battle of San Romana's page, describing this painting's history.

--Iacobus 03:16, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] November 2005

Added bibliographic details. I plan to do more work on this page: hope this doesn't clash with anyone else's plans.

--Iacobus 06:50, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Biography and list of works added to present. I have substituted a new opening paragraph and deleted text about origins of Battle of San Romano panels, as this seems (from my reading) to be somewhat apocryphal, and marginal to a general article about the artist. At some point I aim to create pages for each of Paolo's major works.

[edit] Action-Item List from Peer Review

Following are some bulleted items from the Peer Review by Awadewit in March 2007. If anyone is interested in addressing some of these items in his/her edits to the article, please then place indented comments within the list as individual items are responded to.

  • General comment 1: Consider dividing his life into subsections: Early life and apprenticeship, Florence, etc.
  • General comment 2: Consider including a separate section on Paolo Uccello's aesthetic so that you can delve into an analysis of his paintings. You might have a subsection here on his artistic legacy or even make that a separate section altogether.
  • General comment 3: There are several one-sentence paragraphs. Can these be worked into the narrative or expanded?
  • He had some influence on twentieth century art and literary criticism. - what kind of influence? Consider adding a hint to the lead.
  • His nickname Uccello came from his fondness for painting birds. - could one simply add "Uccello, which means "bird" in Latin,.."
  • His father, Dono di Paolo, was a barber-surgeon from Pratovecchio near Arezzo, his mother’s name was Antonia. - awkwardly worded
  • Tell why it is significant that Paolo was friends with Donatello (alas, not everyone knows who Donatello was).
  • Actual quotes from Vasari would add to the article. Ex:
Vasari writes that people thought this was a great and beautiful achievement.
His depiction of a fierce lion fighting with a venom-spouting snake was espeically appreciated by Vasari.
  • Paolo was asked to paint a number of distempered scenes of animals for the house of the Medici. - It is unclear what is meant by "distempered".
  • Should he be referred to as Paolo or Uccello? It seems odd to refer to him as the bird. What do scholarly sources do?
  • Uccello was married to Tomassa Malifici by 1453, because in that year Donato (named after Donatello) was born, and in 1456 his wife gave birth to Antonia. - oddly worded
  • He painted a predella with the Miracle of the Profaned Host part of a monumental altarpiece. - briefly tell what a predella is
  • With his precise, analytical mind he tried to apply a scientific method to depict objects in three-dimensional space. In particular, some of his studies of the perspective foreshortening of the torus are preserved, and he realised the thus acquired insights in his paintings in form of the mazzocchio. - awkwardly worded
  • To go for GA and eventually FA, there will need to be inline citations. WP:CITE Pope-Hennessy is mentioned as a source for the list of works (obviously a classic in the field) and there is a good list of references. Editors who have access to these references are requested to add footnotes in the text.
  • Is there is a picture available of Paolo Uccello himself to put in the infobox?

Thanks again to Awadewit for the review, and thanks in advance to any editors who work on the items above. Cheers, Lini 04:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Vasari

About Vasari's facts and opinions. Vasari's opinions are sometimes apparently manufactured on hearsay. The point is is in regards to the colours used in the frescoes at San Miniato al Monte. Vasari states that the frescoes were in terra verde and colour. He then goes on to talk about the red brickks and blue fields and then gives a POV "He was wrong to do so because something that is meant to represent stone could not and should not be coloured with another tint.

Vasari then goes on to priase the Sir John Hawkwood, the prophets' heads and the Flood Cycle.

What is the problem in all this?

The problem is that Uccello habitually painted in terra verde and vermilion. Sir John Hawkwood, the Prohets' heads and the magnificent Flood cycle use the identical colour scheme that Vasari slams as being inappropriate at San Miniato al Monte.

So what is it all about?

Little of the work a San Miniato is intact. Perhaps the monkks destroyed or had it painted over. I don't know. But one thing that we can gather is this, that at some point in time between the creation and Vasari's writing, the monks said they did not like the unusual colour scheme and their complaints were recorded so that Vasari eventually heard that the colours were wrong! Exactly the same colours pleased the commissioners at il Duomo and the Dominican Fathers at their new church of Santa Maria Novella.

We know that they were pleased at il Duomo because they gave him another commission, and later they ordered a matching painting from Castagno. As for the Flood at Santa Maria Novella, ever since the cycle was painted it has been regarded as a masterpiece. Unfortunately, these paintings are in a poor state and barely indicate their remarkable quality as works of art.

The problem with complaints at San Miniato may not have occurred at the time of painting. It might have happened years later. On the other hand it may have been that the paintings were simply too modern, which complaint has been said a thousand times. However it is, when Vasari says "He was wrong to do it..." he is reflecting the disappointment of another party, not the way the artistic fraternity of Florence at the time, or at Vasari's time perceived Uccello's works in terra verde. Elsewhere they were perceived as very remarkable.

In instances like this one, Vasari is a very unreliable source, because he has published conflicting opinions of the identical artistic style, without realising that the things that he has described are stylistically the same and that the opinions therefore are in conflict.

Another point:- Vasari says, and it is quoted here, that Uccello painted trees in natural colours. He didn't. His frescoed trees at Santa Maria Novella are in the same bluish green that is described as being wrong in the San Miniato paintings.

At Santa Maria Novella there are, in the frescoes, a number of trees and a great deal of broken foliage. These trees and the landscape, all in bluish green, are magnificently painted. They are, from my memory at least, by far the best painted trees in any fresco of the period or earlier. But it is not natural colouration that makes them so outstanding. It is three dimentionality and the naturalness of the foliage, regardless of their monochrome colour.

I think this article needs some work. I'm going to get stuck into it.

--Amandajm 09:33, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] new edits: "host", vasari, etc.; new entry help requested

Hi,

A number of the changes and additions I made today (see diffs) do in fact agree with those suggested in the peer review (which I hadn't read when I dived in).

The general quality of the piece is kind of a listing of paintings, and then come sentences un-analyzed, such as "his perspective was good" kind of stuff.

Not to go too deep into the history of perspective in painting, which is an entry I'd like to start--and invite any and all of you to help--, but comparison with Mazzochio, say, or at least some contemporary context, as well as comments on the how of the skills involved, is necessary. (Hell, even that revolting "Desectration of the Host" panel has extraordinary golden section and vanishing- line stuff going on.)

Best to whoever contributed to the entry, of course, --Shlishke (talk) 09:40, 16 February 2008 (UTC)