FLORENCE, BEGINNINGS TO UCCELLO 



the fury of their riders ; the great teeth are bared, even 

 the gums exposed, as though they lusted to tear their 

 opponents to pieces. The fine description of the old 

 poet-naturalist who wrote the book of Job comes into 

 the mind : ** He paweth in the valley and rejoiceth in 

 his strength ; he goeth on to meet the armed men. He 

 mocketh at fear and is not affrighted, neither turneth 

 he back from the sword . . . the quiver rattleth against 

 him, the glittering spear and the shield. He swalloweth 

 the ground with fierceness and rage." ^ 



There are no birds here ; his sense of the fitness of 

 things has not allowed him, however much he may have 

 been inclined to paint them, to place them amongst this 

 rout, "the thunder of the captains and the shouting." 



The story of Noah gave scope to painters of this 

 naturalistic tendency. Vasari says that Uccello in his 

 rendering of the Deluge painted a raven tearing out 

 the eyes of a corpse,^ and in the Sacrifice of Noah he 



three or four artists. Leonardo's horse has to my knowledge, particularly 

 in the structure of the head, never been so imitated as to have the least 

 chance of puzzling a scientific student of this master, although not quite 

 to the same degree as the horses' heads in Botticelli. Paolo Uccello's 

 snub-nosed quadrupeds are also peculiar to him, and Carpaccio's strange 

 hybrids belong to no one else." — Bernhard Berenson, The Study and 

 Criticism of Italian Art, vol. ii. p. 140. 



^ Job xxxix. 21-26. 



2 A bear and a man floating on some wreckage are making common 

 cause against a lion which wishes to join them. An old man is held on 

 the back of a buffalo by a woman. 



27 



