Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/148

 VII

PAOLO UCCELLO

1397-1475

Fra Angelico was giving expression to the ideals of a departing age in his paintings, a little band of Florentines were slowly working out the development of art on very different lines. The aim of these artists is set forth by a contemporary writer, the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti, in the following passage:—"I have always followed the study of the arts with great diligence and order. From my earliest days I have always tried to discover how Nature reveals herself in Art, and how I may best draw near to her; how forms really present themselves to the eye, and on what principles the arts of painting and sculpture should be practised." Foremost among the painters who devoted themselves to the presentation of natural objects was Paolo Uccello, the great student and teacher of linear perspective. Paolo di Dono was born in 1397, and was the son of a barber-surgeon of Pratovecchio, in the Casentino, who afterwards came to live in the quarter of S. Spirito in Florence. At ten years old Paolo entered the shop of Lorenzo Ghiberti, and attached himself to the little group of earnest workers and seekers after knowledge who numbered Donatello, Brunellesco and Masaccio in 118