Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/369

Rh over, given many eloquent expressions of human passion and feeling, showing the disregard of their common danger from the rising waters, of two men who are fighting on horseback; and, on the other hand, the excessive terror of death experienced by a woman and man. who are both mounted on a butfalo, but who find that the hinder parts of the animal are gradually sinking beneath the water, insomuch that they lose all hope of being able to save themselves,—a work which displayed so much excellence, that the master acquired the highest reputation from it: the whole is carefully executed according to the laws of perspective, and many of the accessories are very beautiful. Beneath this story, Paolo likewise depicted the inebriation of Noah, with the contemptuous proceeding of his son Ham (in whom he pourtrayed the Florentine painter and sculptor Dello, who was his friend), with Shem and Japhet, the other sons, who throw a vestment over their father’s prostrate form. In the same picture, is a cask in perspective, the curved lines of which, drawn in different directions, were considered very fine; there is also a long line of trellis-work, covered with bunches of grapes, the rods of which being square on the plane, diminish as they approach the point of view; but the master committed an error in this matter, since the floor on which the figures stand, diminishes according to the lines of the trelliswork, but the cask does not follow those receding lines, and I am surprised that an artist so careful and exact should have committed so manifest an error. Paolo further represented the Sacrifice of Noah; and here he painted the open ark in perspective, with ranges of perches in the upper part, divided into regular rows, for the birds, of which various kinds are seen to fly out in flocks. In the air above is the figure of God the Father, who appears over the sacrifice which Noah and his sons are in the act of offering. This figure is the most difficult of any that Paolo Uccello executed, since it is represented with the head foreshortened, flying towards the wall, and has such force and relief, that it seems to press through and divide it. There is, besides, a large number of different animals about the patriarch Noah, all most beautifully done. The whole work is, in short, so full of harmony and grace, that it is, without doubt, the best of his labours, nay, beyond comparison, superior to them all,