The second job that Uccello had at the Cathedral was to paint the clock. The clock has two faces, one that can be seen outside in the square and another which is on an inside wall of the cathedral. Uccello had to paint a clock face around the hand on the inside wall. (It's a 24-hour clock and it's only got one hand.) Uccello painted the round clockface into a square shape and put the head of a prophet in each corner. The prophets' faces are all very different but the thing that is the most clever about them is that Uccello painted bright light and dark shadows on their faces as if the light was coming from a real window which is high on the wall to the left side of the clock.
The other important job for the cathedral was to design two big round stained glass windows, each one 4.5 metres across. The cathedral had been built in the last century, but it had been left with a huge hole at the centre which needed a roof of some sort. An artist called Brunelleschi had come up with a brilliant plan for a dome, and the whole city was excited about getting it built. Workmen from every part of the town formed 8 gangs to build the 8 parts. As the dome grew, it had 8 large windows that needed glass. The best artists in Florence were asked to design them. Three of Uccello's designs were used but unfortunately one was smashed in 1828. The two that remain are "The Nativity" (The Birth of Jesus) and "The Resurrection" (Jesus rising from the dead).
By 1453, Uccello was married to Tomassa Malifici. In that year she gave birth to Donato who was named after the sculptor Donatello. In 1456 the couple had a daughter, Antonia, who later became a nun and a painter.
The paintings that are regarded as Uccello's masterpieces are frescoes of Noah's Ark and the Great Flood in the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. Unfortunately, they are quite badly damaged and partly lost, but even so, it is possible to see what a clever artist Uccello was. There are two things remarkable about the pictures. Firstly, they are very realistic. The second is that they use perspective to give the impression that the viewer is looking into the scene.
As in the fresco of Sir John Hawkwood, Uccello does not use many colours. The pictures are painted in white, pale grey, blue grey and just a little black. The landscape is grey, the water is blue-grey, the people are white with grey shadows. But the paintings are made lively by all the bits of red. All the man-made things, like the Ark, the old doors, barrels, up-side-down tables and broken things that are floating on the flood water, are all painted in the same red colour. Some of the people are wearing big black and white hats that were popular in Florence. In the disaster of the flood, one man is floating in a barrel. Another man, seeing an old man standing on a little hill, has grabbed him round the ankles to pull himself up. Another man, with part of his great big fashionable hat slipped down around his neck, is thumping on the wall of the ark with a club. The wind is blowing, the rain is pouring down and twigs and branches are flying in the wind. It is a scene of terror.
One of the richest men in Florence was Cosimo Medici who liked to spend money on works of art. He asked Uccello to paint three large paintings on panels, each about 3 metres long, to decorate his palace. The subject was to be Three scenes from "the Battle of San Romano" in which the Florentine troops defeated the neighbouring town of Siena. In fact, it was not a very fierce battle. Modern soccer matches between Florence and Siena are probably more bloody. But it made three very good pictures which were later divided up between three important art galleries. The National Gallery, London has the left-hand scene of Niccolo Tolentino leading his troops on his magnificent rearing white charger and wearing, of course, a great big Florentine hat of red and gold "brocade". The Uffizi Gallery in Florence has the middle scene in which the leader of the enemy forces, Bernadino della Ciarda, has been struck by a lance and is falling off his horse backwards. The right-hand scene, which is in the Louvre in Paris, shows the brave Michelotto di Cotignola swinging his horse around to attack an opponent with his sword.
Even though, at first glance each battle scene looks quite chaotic, the paintings are very carefully organised. This is particularly noticeable in the way Uccello has arranged the lances that are held upright by the troops and the many weapons that are lying on the ground. They all serve the purpose of leading the viewers eye into the painting. They create perspective. And while the battle is raging in the "foreground", in the "background" are mountains, fields, hedges and woods. In them are farmers, hunters and animals. The difference in size between the figures in the "foreground" and the figures in the "background" create distance in the picture.
Uccello studied perspective all his life in a way that was quite obsessive. Sometimes he would not come out of his house for weeks. His friend Donatello, another respected artist, begged him to do more painting and less study. Uccello became very good at mathematical calculation of the perspective of buildings, but it was not until his old age that he could fully understand how to calculate the sizes of things like people in the distance. His last painting shows a hunting party, with a great forest of trees, people and dogs, all going away into the distance, from near to far.
In 1469 Paolo wrote on his tax assessment that he was too old to work any more and that his wife was ill. Giorgio Vasari, who, 100 years later, researched and wrote the lives of many painters, wrote that, unfortunately Paolo was badly offended by Donatello, who looked at his latest painting and told him, for a joke, to cover it up. Vasari said that Paolo was so hurt that refused to come out of his room but sat working at his drawings, and whenever his wife called him to come to bed he would answer "What a wonderful thing perspective is!"
He died on 10 November, 1475, leaving behind him his old wife and a daughter Antonia who was also very good at painting. Unfortunately, none of her pictures are known today.
Fallen Leaves
"Fallen Leaves" is a song by the Canadian music group Billy Talent. It is the sixth track on the album "Billy Talent II" and is their third single to be released.
Sumer Is Icumen In
"Sumer Is Icumen In" is a very old English song which can be sung as a round. It is the oldest example of a round that we know of. The composer is unknown. It was written down around the middle of the 13th century by a monk but we do not know whether that monk composed it, or whether it had been composed earlier.
The title means "Summer has come in". The round can be sung in six parts. There are also two parts which can be repeated again and again (an ostinato) throughout the piece. The language is Middle English and is based on the dialect spoken in Wessex, England at the time.
This is the manuscript that the monk wrote:
To sing as a round, one singer (or group of singers) would begin at the beginning, a second singer would start at the beginning as the first got to the point marked with the red cross, then the third would join in when the second singer got to the red cross, and so on until all six were singing. The repeated pattern is marked "Pes". The instructions are written in Latin.
Here is the song in modern notation:
Here are the words with a modern English translation:
Carmen
Carmen is a French opera written and first performed on 3 March 1875 by Georges Bizet. The story is set in Spain. It is based on the story of the same title by Prosper Mérimée.