My Kid Could Paint That

Dear Uccello,

My first impression of you was a simple Google search: “Uccello paintings.” My prior readings of your work hailed you as an innovator of perspective, a great Renaissance artist, perhaps in the ranks of Donatello and Botticelli. But what I saw was a surprisingly mediocre gallery.

Paolo Uccello, The Battle of San Romano, 1435

Nothing was particularly striking or attention-grabbing. I was disappointed, to say the least. In an era of Ghiberti and Masaccio, your work pales in comparison. In fact, it quite literally pales, as no one bothered to properly preserve any of it and it is now in various degrees of deterioration. No one even bothered to preserve your mosaics, which were supposed to have been great masterpieces. However, based on your paintings, I am forced to question the accuracy of this statement. Clearly the tastes of patrons were less refined than modern perspectives.

Paolo Uccello, Miracle of the Desecrated Host, 1466

And then there is the question of your so-called perspective. I find it hard to believe that you spent hours on end in your workshop mastering the art of vanishing points and size relativity. For, had you really mastered these skills, your paintings surely would have utilized them? Or so one would think. Yet I look at The Miracle of the Desecrated Host and see botched perspective and unrealistic proportions. Why are the figures in Scenes from a Monastic Life as tall as trees? And, what really gets me is your strategic placement of lances in The Battle of San Romano, which serve to guide the viewers’ eye along the lines of perspective that you so clumsily created. This cheap shot at fabricating vanishing points only confuses viewers and adds to the chaotic untidiness of the painting. 

Paolo Uccello, The Hunt, 1470

So, why do you keep trying?

After studying your works for the better part of two weeks, I can decisively say that we are not on good terms. I do not like you, Uccello. I would rather look at a Fra Angelico or a Verrocchio. The only enjoyment I get from looking at your paintings is from laughing at them. Both representations of Saint George and the Dragon are laughably outrageous, The Hunt is filled with anatomically bizarre animals, and your cartoonish characters in pretty much all of your paintings are endlessly amusing. Your legacy is average at best. I will not apologize for my opinions in this letter, but I will leave you now to rest.

Paulo Uccello, Miracle of the Desecrated Host, Scene 1, 1466

Donatello once told Paolo Uccello to stop wasting his time on the pointless endeavor of perspective painting.

But Uccello did not listen, and that brings us to Scene 1 of “The Miracle of the Desecrated Host.”

Uccello’s talents may have been misplaced but his intentions were good. As a trailblazer for Renaissance perspective painting, he was doing the best he could. Uccello, a mathematician and mosaicist in Florence in the early 1400s, began painting in the studio of Lorenzo Ghiberti. This is where he met and became friends with Donatello, and it was also where he fostered his interest in perspective. Influenced by Ghiberti and the simple geometry of the time, Uccello began implementing clumsy attempts at perspective in his sketches and paintings (for a particularly novice attempt, check out the 1458 version of St. George and the Dragon.) Uccello attempted to use perspective to give his frescoes depth, while the conventional application was to narrate different stories within the same painting. Despite his innovative notions, he lacked the skill and knowledge to execute his ideas very well. Since he worked in mosaics for much of his life, he was accustomed to flatness, and creating depth in his paintings was troublesome. He spent hours working at night trying to master the vanishing point and create depth of field, to no avail. We can laugh at his feeble attempts, but at least he was trying really,really hard. 

It's a mess.