Paolo Uccello - Definition and Overview

Niccolò da Tolentino Leads the Florentine Troops (1450s)
Tempera on wood, 182 x 320 cm National Gallery, London

Paolo di Dono, better known as Paolo Uccello (b.1397 - d.1475) was a painter (and also a creator of mosaics) in the employ and patronage of the powerful Florentine Renaissance family, the Medicis. Uccello is considered the father of the art of the perspective.

In paintings such as The Battle of San Romano (circa 1450), his use of perspective and vanishing point created fundamental changes in the way art depicts spatial relations. See also The Hunt (c. 1460), in which he strives to make the running hounds three dimensional, knowing that the spatial aspect was critical to the viewer's enjoyment.

His life was described in Giorgio Vasari's Vite.

See also:

• List of painters
• List of Italian painters
• List of famous Italians