Continuing our notes on the early Renaissance artists after whom our Watermill bedrooms are named*, today it’s the turn of Paolo Uccello.

Cinq maîtres de la Renaissance Florentine. Detail. Anonymous. mid-16th C. Musée du Louvre Peintures INV 267. Photo: Shonagon, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

Uccello (1397-1475,) was a pioneer of the use of linear perspective, invented (or re-discovered) by my hero Filippo Brunelleschi. Uccello was so obsessed with the new technique that it affected his married life. His wife said that he stayed up all night in his studio making intricate drawings and when she called for him to come to bed, he would cry out: “Oh what a sweet thing this perspective is!” Mrs Uccello’s comment are not recorded!

Uccello is Italian for bird and we have been trying, unsuccessfully, to resist a quasi-Italian pun, by saying “He was a strange old bird, that Uccello.”

Perspective Study of a Chalice, pen and ink on paper, 29 x 24.5 cm, Gabinetto dei Disegni, Uffizi, Florence, Italy, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

Paolo is probably best known for his three paintings of the Battle of San Romano, where the Florentines more or less defeated the Sienese. Here is the version  in the Uffizi gallery in Florence. For perspective and foreshortening, note particularly the backside of the bucking brown horse on the right :

Paolo Uccello. Battle of San Romano (dating uncertain, c. 1435–1455), tempera on wood, Uffizzi Gallery, Florence. Picture: Gleb Simonov – Own work, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

Uccello also painted the imposing clockface inside Florence Cathedral. As if in tribute to his eccentricity, the numbers ascend anti-clockwise!

Paolo Uccello. Clock with heads of prophets. Florence Cathedral 1443 Paolo Uccello, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

*Who wants a number on the bedroom door when they could be staying in Uccello, Botticelli, Bronzino or Brunelleschi? Or  Gentileschi, Ghirlandaio or Ghiberti? Or one of another half-dozen famous Italian artists, from Alberti to Vasari?

Some years ago we decided to switch from numbers to names in each of our rooms, They celebrate famous Italian artists, mainly from the Renaissance and mainly men, because (a) the early Renaissance is our favourite artistic period and (b) few women were painting professionally in those days.. At Lois’ insistence we included Artemesia Gentileschi on our list, and next year we will be introducing Sofonisba Anguissola, despite her tongue-twisting name.

Look out for more stories about the artists whose names are celebrated in Watermill bedrooms in the coming weeks.