In Santa Maria del Fiore Uccello painted a horse in terra verde to commemorate Giovanni Acuto,1 the English captain of the Florentines who died in 1393; this was a beautiful work of extraordinary grandeur, with the figure of the captain above, done in chiaroscuro and coloured with terra verde, in a fresco twenty feet high on the middle of one wall of the church. Paolo drew there in perspective a large sarcophagus supposed to contain the corpse, and over this he painted the image of the captain on horseback and wearing his armour. This fresco has always been regarded as a very fine example of that kind of work. Unfortunately, Paolo’s horse has been painted moving its legs on one side only, and this is something which horses cannot do without falling. Perhaps he made the mistake because he was not in the habit of riding and not as familiar with horses as with other animals. Anyhow, but for that the painting would be absolutely perfect: the horse, which is very large, is done in beautiful perspective, and on the pedestal is the inscription: PAULI UCCELLI OPUS.
At that time Uccello painted in colour the clock-face over the principal doorway of the same church, with four heads at the corners coloured in fresco. He also worked in terra verde in the loggia which overlooks the garden of the Angeli, facing west, painting under each arch a scene from the life of St Benedict the abbot and including the most notable events of his life. Among the finest of these scenes is one showing the destruction of a monastery through the agency of the devil, with the body of a dead friar pinned under the stones and timbers; no less remarkable is the fear expressed in the figure of another monk, whose clothes are swirling gracefully round his naked body as he runs away. This provided an inspiration for other artists, who have subsequently always imitated the same stylistic device. Very beautiful also is the devout and grave figure of St Benedict himself, shown in the presence of all his monks restoring the dead friar to life. All these scenes, indeed, contain details worthy of careful study, especially in some instances where the perspective has been carried to the slates and tiles of the roof. In the death scene of St Benedict there are some remarkably fine representations of infirm and senile people, who have come to see him only to find his monks making his obsequies and grieving over his death. And among the many devout and loving followers of the saint is an old monk hobbling on two crutches, whose emotions are marvellously expressed and who, perhaps, is hoping to recover his health. Although this work contains no coloured landscapes nor many buildings or difficult perspectives, it is boldly designed and well executed.
In many Florentine houses can be found a number of pictures by Uccello, all of them small, painted in perspective to decorate the sides of couches, beds, and so forth; in particular, at Valfonda, on a terrace in a garden once belonging to the Bartolini, there are four battle scenes painted by Uccello on wood and showing horses and armed men wearing the beautiful costumes of those days. Among the men are portraits of Paolo Orsini, Ottobuono da Parma, Luca da Canale, and Carlo Malatesta, ruler of Rimini, all commanders of that time. In our own day, since they have been damaged and spoilt, those pictures were restored by Giuliano Bugiardini, who did them more harm than good.
When Donatello went to work in Padua, he sent for Uccello, and at the entrance of the Vitaliani Palace he painted in terra verde some giants which, as I discovered in a letter in Latin which Girolamo Campagnola wrote to Leonico Tomeo, the philosopher, were greatly admired for their beauty by Andrea Mantegna. Paolo decorated the vaulting of the Peruzzi in fresco with triangular sections in perspective, and in the angles of the corner he painted the four elements, representing each by an appropriate animal: a mole for earth, a fish for water, a salamander for fire, and for air the chameleon, which lives on air and assumes any colour. Since he had never seen a chameleon, Uccello painted instead a camel which is opening its mouth and filling its belly by swallowing air: and in this he certainly showed his great simplicity in alluding by the name of the camel to an animal which is like a small, shrivelled lizard, and depicting it by a lumbering great beast.
Paolo undoubtedly worked hard at his profession; he drew so much that he left his relations, as they have told me themselves, whole chests full of drawings. But although designs are good in themselves it is better to translate them into works which have a longer life. In our book there are many drawings by Uccello of figures, perspectives, birds, and wonderfully fine animals, but best of all is a study for a mazzocchio drawn in outline only, yet so beautifully intricate that only Paolo could have had the patience to do it. Although he was eccentric, Paolo loved the talent he saw in his fellow-craftsmen; and to preserve their memory for posterity he painted the portraits of five distinguished men with his own hand on a long panel which he kept in his house in memory of them. One was the painter Giotto, standing for the light and origin of painting; the second was Filippo Brunelleschi, for architecture; then Donatello, for sculpture; Uccello himself, for perspective and animal painting; and for mathematics his friend Giovanni Manetti, with whom he often conferred and discoursed on the problems of Euclid.
The story goes that Uccello was once commissioned to paint over the door of the church of San Tommaso in the Old Market a fresco showing St Thomas feeling for the wound in Christ’s side, and that he put all he could into the work, saying that he wanted it to display all his ability and knowledge. So he had a screen of planks put up round the painting to keep it hidden until it was ready. One day Donatello met him on his own and said:
‘And what kind of work is this that you’ve hidden behind a screen?’
Paolo answered: ‘You’ll just have to wait and see.’
Donatello would not press him any further, expecting that he would see some miracle, as usual, when the time came. Then one morning Donatello happened to be buying some fruit in the Old Market when he saw that Paolo was uncovering his work. He greeted Paolo courteously, and Paolo, who was anxious to have his opinion, asked him what he thought of the painting. After he had closely scrutinized it, Donatello commented:
‘Well now. Paolo, now that it ought to be covered up, you’re showing it to the whole world.’
Paolo was deeply offended by this, and finding that instead of all the praise he had anticipated he was being censured for this, his last work, he felt so humiliated that he no longer had the heart to go out of doors, and he shut himself up in his house and devoted all his time to perspective, which kept him poor and secluded till the day he died. He lived to a ripe but disgruntled old age, dying in 1432 in his eighty-third year. He was buried in Santa Maria Novella.1
He left a daughter, who had some knowledge of drawing, and a wife who told people that Paolo used to stay up all night in his study, trying to work out the vanishing points of his perspective, and that when she called him to come to bed he would say: ‘Oh, what a lovely thing this perspective is!’
Andindeed, if perspective was dear to Uccello it also proved, thanks to his works, attractive and rewarding to those who have used it since.
LIFE OF LORENZO GHIBERTI
Florentine sculptor, 1378–1455
ALL over the world men of acknowledged genius can expect to be revered and emulated both by posterity and by their contemporaries; and certainly during their own lifetime they are generously praised and rewarded. In fact, there is nothing which so inspires men or makes the burden of their studies seem lighter, than the prospect that their work will eventually bring them respect and riches. These rewards make difficult undertakings seem easy; men cultivate their talents with redoubled ambition when they are spurred on by applause. When they see and hear others being praised, there is no end to the number of people who will exert themselves to earn what some of their fellow citizens have already won. This was why in ancient times men who distinguished themselves were rewarded with riches or honoured with triumphs and statues. Talent, all the same, only too often provokes envy; and to make sure of success or even survival in the face of envious onslaughts men who have talent must either prove their complete superiority or, at least, demonstrate that their achievements are soundly based and will sta
nd up to criticism. How to do this well was shown perfectly, thanks to his own merit as well as his good fortune, by Lorenzo di Cione Ghiberti (also known as Lorenzo di Bartoluccio) an artist to whom those two distinguished craftsmen, the sculptor Donatello and the sculptor and architect Filippo Brunelleschi, readily took second place, despite their natural inclination to do otherwise, since they clearly recognized that he was far more expert in casting bronzes than they were. This action brought them great credit, but it threw into confusion those arrogant enough to push in front of better artists, take an eternity to produce something worthless, and upset and frustrate the skill of others by their envy and ill-will.
Lorenzo was the son of Bartoluccio Ghiberti. From his earliest years he studied the goldsmith’s art with his father, whom he soon outpaced although Bartoluccio was an accomplished craftsman. Lorenzo, however, was more interested in sculpture and drawing, and he used sometimes to use colours or cast little figures in bronze, finishing them very gracefully. He also loved to counterfeit the dies of antique medals, and he made portraits of many of his friends. In 1400 when he was still working with Bartoluccio and striving to make progress in his profession, the plague broke out in Florence (as Ghiberti himself described in his own book on art, which is in the possession of Cosimo Bartoli, a gentleman of Florence).1 As well as the plague, Florence was troubled by civil discord and other disturbances, and so, along with another painter, Ghiberti was forced to leave for the Romagna. In Rimini they decorated a room for Signor Pandolfo Malatesta and executed many other works which were finished very diligently and gave much satisfaction to the prince, who while still a young man took great pleasure in the art of design.
Lorenzo himself kept up his studies and practised working in relief with wax, stucco, and similar materials, knowing that small works of that kind constitute the preparatory sketches which a sculptor must make to achieve perfection in his finished work.
Now not long after Lorenzo had left the plague died out in Florence, and the Signoria and the Cloth-merchants Guild determined (seeing that there were many first-rate sculptors available at that time, both native and foreign) that as had so often been discussed a start should be made on the other two doors for San Giovanni, the very ancient and principal church of the city. They resolved to invite to Florence the best craftsmen in Italy to make in competition, as a trial specimen of their work, a scene in bronze similar to one of those that Andrea Pisano had made earlier for the first door. Bartoluccio wrote sending the news of this decision to Lorenzo, who was then working in Pesaro, and urging him to come back to Florence and show what he could do. Lorenzo, he argued, would be given the chance to make his name known and to prove his skill and ability; and, moreover, the work could bring him so big a reward that neither of them would ever again need to rely for a living on making trinkets.1
Lorenzo was so stirred by what Bartoluccio said that he insisted on taking his leave despite the favours and affection shown him by Signor Pandolfo and all his court and by the other painter who was with him. Indeed, every hour’s delay seemed to Lorenzo like an eternity. And so with great reluctance and displeasure they let him go, having failed to win him over either by their promises or their offers of more money; and Lorenzo set off joyfully for home.
Already many strangers had arrived and presented themselves to the consuls of the Guild, who chose seven artists in all, three Florentines and the rest Tuscans, voted them a salary, and stipulated that by the end of a year each one should complete as an example of his work a bronze scene of the same size as those in the first door. For the subject, they choose Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac, considering that this would test the competitors in all the problems of their craft since it demanded the ability to render landscapes, both nude and draped figures, and animals, and because the foremost figures were to be shown in full relief, the second in half relief and the third in low relief. The competitors were Filippo Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Lorenzo di Bartoluccio (all Florentines), Jacopo della Quercia of Siena, Niccolò Aretino his pupil, Francesco di Valdambrino, and Simone dal Colle, called Simone de’ Bronzi. These artists promised to deliver their finished scenes by the stipulated time, and they set to work with great diligence and enthusiasm, exerting all their energies and knowledge to surpass one another and jealously hiding what they were doing lest they should copy one another’s ideas. Lorenzo alone (advised by Bartoluccio who told him to do several models before selecting one from which to work) continually brought along citizens and even passing strangers if they knew about the art, to give their opinion of his work; and helped by their advice he produced a faultless model. When he had made the moulds and cast the work in bronze it came out very well, and then with the help of his father, Bartoluccio, he polished it with such patience and love that nothing could have been better executed or finished.
The time had now arrived for the scenes to be judged, and Lorenzo’s and those of the other artists were completely finished and given to the Merchants Guild for their decision. After they had all been inspected by the consuls and a number of other citizens, a great many different opinions were expressed. There were many strangers in Florence, painters, sculptors, and goldsmiths, who had been summoned by the consuls to take part in the judging along with other craftsmen from Florence itself.
Altogether there were thirty-four judges, each one an expert in his particular art, and although opinions varied considerably, some of them liking the style of one man and some that of another, they all agreed none the less that Filippo Brunelleschi and Lorenzo di Bartoluccio had composed and finished their scenes better, and with a richer variety of figures, than had Donatello, even though his also showed great qualities of design. The figures in Jacopo della Quercia’s scene were good, but they lacked delicacy despite all the care and design that had gone into them. Francesco di Valdambrino had made some good heads and his scene was well finished, but the composition was confused. Simone dal Colle had done a beautiful casting, since he specialized in that craft, but his scene was poorly designed. Niccolò Aretino’s showed good workmanship, but his figures were stunted and the work was badly finished. Only the scene which Lorenzo offered as a specimen, which can still be seen in the audience chamber of the Merchants Guild, was absolutely perfect in every detail: the whole work had design, and was very well composed; the finely posed figures showed the individuality of his style and were made with elegance and grace; and the scene was finished so carefully that it seemed to have been breathed into shape rather than cast and then polished with iron tools. When Donatello and Filippo saw the diligence with which he had worked they drew aside and determined between themselves that the commission should go to Lorenzo. In that way, they considered, both the public and the private interest would be best served and given the opportunity Lorenzo, who was still a young man of under twenty, would be enabled to produce the even greater results that were promised by his beautiful scene which, in their judgement, was far better than the others. They remarked that it was only fair to let him have the commission and that the shame of denying him it would be too great.
So Lorenzo started work on the doors for the entrance opposite the Office of Works of San Giovanni, making for one section a framework of the exact size that the bronze was to be, with frames and with the ornaments of the heads at the corners of the spaces for the scenes, and with the friezes surrounding them. Then very carefully he made and dried the mould and, in a room that he had hired opposite Santa Maria Novella, where the hospital of the Weavers stands today on the spot called the Threshing-floor, he built a huge furnace (which I remember seeing myself) and cast the framework in bronze. As luck would have it, it came out badly, but without panicking or losing heart Lorenzo found out what had gone wrong and promptly made a fresh mould and cast it again in secret; and it came out splendidly. He continued working in this way, casting each scene separately and putting it in place when it was ready. The arrangement of the scenes followed that which Andrea Pisano had adopted earlier for the first door, designed
for him by Giotto. Lorenzo did twenty scenes from the New Testament, leaving underneath eight corresponding spaces. For these he made the four evangelists, two for each leaf of the door, and likewise the four Doctors of the Church. All these figures were given distinctive poses and draperies: one is writing, another reading, others are meditating; they are all lifelike and varied, and beautifully executed. As well as this, in the frames round each scene Lorenzo made a border of ivy leaves and other kinds of foliage and moulding, with a male or female head in full relief at every corner, representing prophets and sibyls. These again are extremely attractive and varied and give ample testimony of Lorenzo’s genius. Above the panels showing the Doctors of the Church and the evangelists, starting from below on the side nearer Santa Maria del Fiore, the first of the four pictures shows the Annunciation of Our Lady. Lorenzo conveys in the pose of the Virgin her sudden fear and alarm as she turns, with exquisite grace, when the angel appears. Beside this scene he represented the Nativity of Christ, showing Our Lady resting after she has given birth, with St Joseph meditating and the shepherds and the angels singing. On the other side of the door, on the same line, follows the scene showing the coming of the Magi who are adoring Christ and offering him their tribute; their servants and horses and the rest of their retinue follow them and are very skilfully portrayed. Next is the scene of Christ disputing among the doctors in the Temple, in which Lorenzo expressed the wonder and attention with which the doctors are listening to Christ and the joy of Mary and Joseph at finding him again. Over these four scenes, starting with the panel above the Annunciation is, first, the Baptism of Christ by John in the Jordan, in which the attitudes of the two figures convey perfectly the reverence of the one and the faith of the other. Then comes the Temptation of Christ by the devil, who is shrinking in terror at the words of Jesus in an attitude that shows he recognizes that he is the son of God. Corresponding to these on the other side Lorenzo has shown Christ driving the traders out of the Temple, overturning the money, the sacrificial victims, the doves, and the rest of their merchandise; and with wonderful skill and invention he has depicted some of the traders falling over each other and sprawling headlong. Then comes the shipwreck of the Apostles, where St Peter leaves the boat and starts to sink but is held up by Christ. The attitudes of the Apostles who are labouring in the boat are beautifully portrayed, and the faith of St Peter is demonstrated by his walking towards Christ. Going back to the other side, over the Baptism we see the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, where Lorenzo expressed in the poses of the three Apostles the way in which mortal men are dazzled by the supernatural; and here Christ is displayed on high in his divinity, standing between Elias and Moses with his arms outspread. Beside this scene is the Raising of Lazarus, who has come out of the tomb bound hand and foot and who stands upright to the wonder of the onlookers. We see Martha and Mary Magdalen, who is kissing the feet of the Lord with great reverence and humility. On the other side of the door there follows the scene showing Christ riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, the Jewish children spreading their clothes and olive branches and palms on the ground before him, and the Apostles following the Saviour. Next comes the Last Supper, where the Apostles, in a beautifully composed scene, are shown seated at a long table, half of them on one side and half on the other. Over the scene of the Transfiguration is, first, the Agony in the Garden, with the three Apostles asleep in various attitudes. Beside this Lorenzo showed Christ being seized and receiving the kiss of Judas, in a scene with many remarkable details such as the fleeing Apostles and the Jews who are laying hands on him with violent brutality.
Lives of the Artists Page 11