Sarah's Art History - Uccello and Perspective

Hi there,

Here is your five minutes of distraction from the current awfulness that is going on in the world, with Uccello’s Battle of San Romano, 1438-40 in the National Gallery.

So, your questions:

1. What is this a picture of and which side is winning?

2. How many people are dead?

2. The helmets are pretty fancy - which is your favourite?

Then watch the video:

Here are your activities:

1. Find out more about Uccello – you can read an entry for him by Vasari at Project Gutenberg: https://bit.ly/2RfbTUo and wikipedia: https://bit.ly/34ihpuC

2. If you haven’t done it already, practice your perspective and draw your own perspectival throne/cube/anything. Have a look online or check this out to copy: https://bit.ly/3bPX5Dk or https://bit.ly/2JKqIKw

3. Do some research on hats at the Victoria & Albert website: https://bit.ly/2RiGeRJ and then design your own fantastic hat. Can you then make it? Photos please!

4. What about armour? This is quite a fun site to build your own suit of armour: https://bit.ly/3aQp31M, and https://bit.ly/2URHQnX for a brief overview.

5. Why not make a suit of armour – a helmet out of a box, and you can make your own sword here (I’ve tried it and it’s very straightforward!): https://bit.ly/3dVp3j3 and there is some other fun stuff there as well (including a shield – thanks English Heritage!)

So, our next painting will be the classical Triumph’s of Caesar by Mantegna, painted in the late 1400s and in Hampton Court Palace, and I have three questions for you for this image: https://bit.ly/2XhUSg5 :

1. How many people can you see, more or less?

2. How many classical statues can you find?

3. What are the brightest colours in the painting?

Thanks for watching. Do like, follow, share!

See you next time and stay safe. Sxxx