Paolo Uccello: A Reconciler of Two Distinct Styles

Paolo Uccello - Scenes from the Life of the Holy Hermits - 1460s - Tempera on canvas, 81 x 110 cm - Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence (click photo for larger image)Paolo Uccello (1397-1475) was a Florentine painter whose work attempted uniquely to reconcile two distinct artistic styles—the essentially decorative late Gothic and the new heroic style of the early Renaissance. He was one of the first painters to complete a work in precise linear perspective (rather than intuited perspective).

The subject of this painting is rather unusual. In a rocky landscape with forests and caves populated by animals and monks engaged in a variety of activities, we recognize St Benedict in a pulpit, St Bernard and his vision, St Jerome in penance, and St Francis receiving the stigmata. Such a composition does not adhere to any standardized iconography but appears to be a celebration of monasticism in general. The painting can be defined as a Thebaid, i.e. a depiction of the lives of the holy hermits of the first centuries of the Christian era, who retreated as hermits into the Egyptian desert around Thebes. However, Uccello's painting shows the saints and monks belonging to the religious orders common in Florence.

Leon Battista Alberti: The ‘Universal Man’

Leon Battista Alberti - Palazzo Ruccelai: Façade - 1446-51 - Via della Vigna Nuova, Florence (click photo for larger image)Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) was an Italian humanist, architect, and principal initiator of Renaissance art theory. In his personality, works, and breadth of learning, he is considered the prototype of the “universal man.”

The façade of the Palazzo Ruccelai is a strikingly original contribution to the history of Renaissance palace design. The façade's general principles were followed in many other buildings, some actually built, others merely designed. The basic elements are a rusticated three-story building with an entrance portal and high, square windows on the ground floor, mullioned windows on the second and third, and a massive cornice. The three stories are of equal height, and the rustication is identical in all three stories.

Andrea Del Castagno: Emotional Power and Naturalistic Treatment

Andrea del Castagno - God the Father - 1442 - Fresco, height of figure - 176 cm - San Zaccaria, Venice (click photo for larger image)

Andrea del Castagno (1419-1457) was one of the most influential 15th-century Italian Renaissance painters, best known for the emotional power and naturalistic treatment of figures in his work. Castagno's emotionally expressive realism was strongly influenced by Donatello, and perhaps by Piero della Francesca. Castagno's work in turn influenced succeeding generations of Florentine painters, including Sandro Botticelli.

During the first half of the fifteenth century, Florentine artists including Donatello, Paolo Uccello, and Andrea del Castagno traveled to other cities, bringing with them the new style that had been developed. In fact, Andrea del Castagno's earliest known work is represented by frescoes in Venice. They are rather harsh, direct, and uncompromising images that emphasize the more realistic current that is sometimes found in Donatello's sculpture. The picture shown is the seated God the Father holding a globe.

Piero Della Francesca: a Supreme Quattrocento Artist

Piero della Francesca - The Flagellation - c. 1455 - Oil and tempera on panel, 59 x 82 cm - Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino (click photo for larger image)Piero della Francesca (c. 1416-1492) was an Umbrian painter whose serene, disciplined exploration of perspective came to be recognized in the 20th century as a major contribution to the Italian Renaissance. The vigorous volume of his figures, the dignity with which they are imbued, the spatial definition of his paintings, and, above all, his very original use of color and light define a style that has all the elements of the Renaissance, but is also one of the most original of all times.

This panel painting - one of his most famous - was executed by Piero during his first visit to Urbino. It contains subtle references to the situation of the time, which are very difficult to understand today. The theory that seems to be proposed most frequently is that the painting was commissioned as an attempt to favour the reconciliation between the two Christian churches, of the East and of the West, in view of the imminent Turkish attack on Constantinople. Both the presence of the character in the centre, dressed after Greek fashion, and an inscription on the frame ("convenerunt in unum") would seem to support this interpretation.

Fra Filippo Lippi: a Reluctant Friar—a Brilliant Painter

Fra Filippo Lippi - Adoration of the Child with Saints - c. 1463 - Tempera on wood, 140 x 130 cm - Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence (click photo for larger image)Fra Filippo Lippi (1406-1469) was a Florentine painter in the second generation of Renaissance artists. While exhibiting the strong influence of Masaccio and Fra Angelico, his work achieved a distinctive clarity of expression. Later critics have recognized in Lippi a “narrative” spirit that reflected the life of his time and translated into everyday terms the ideals of the early Renaissance.

From the mid-1450s through the mid-1460s, Filippo Lippi evolved a new presentation of the Virgin and Child that became popular in the second half of the Quattrocento in Florence. The composition and iconography were grounded in two traditions: St Bridget of Sweden's account of her vision of the Virgin adoring the Christ Child lying upon the ground, and early Renaissance Tuscan depictions of the Nativity. Fra Filippo transformed the subject into a distinct devotional image set within an elaborated forested landscape with a rich imagery of sylvan flora, geological features, and atmosphere, which functioned as visual metaphors for the Incarnation, penitence, and eremitical religious devotion.