Paolo Uccello

Battle of San Romano — perspective obsessive

The painter Vasari said was so obsessed with perspective that he stayed up all night studying vanishing points while his wife begged him to come to bed. The Battle of San Romano panels — lances, horses, and fallen soldiers arranged in strict foreshortening — are the most dazzling experiments in early Renaissance spatial illusion.

Key works

• Battle of San Romano~1438-1440— Three panels of foreshortened warfare
  Uffizi, Florence / National Gallery, London / Louvre, Paris (one panel each)
• The Flood~1447— Perspective pushed to nightmarish extremes
  Chiostro Verde, Santa Maria Novella, Florence

Connections

External