VACARMES EN TOSCANE

LA BATAILLE DE SAN ROMANO, PAOLO UCELLO - COLLECTION PALETTES

of JAUBERT Alain

FRANCE, 1999, 00:30:00

Production : MUSEE DU LOUVRE, PALETTE PRODUCTIONS, SAADOUN Paul, PAINI Dominique, LA SEPT-ARTE, REUNION DES MUSEES NATIONAUX, MUSEE D'ORSAY
Collection : Musée du Louvre
Genre : Documentary
Keyword : History of art, Painting

Summary :
Choosing key-works in the imaginary of the Western culture, the series called “Palettes” tells in each episode the story of a different painting. In a word, it tells the genealogy of the painting. For a painting has its ancestors and its descendants. A double technical and philosophical knowledge, fed on by a long tradition, gave birth to the painting. And the painting itself gave birth, year after year, to a multitude of other images…
Assuming the idea that the deep meaning of a painting is conveyed by the choice of colours and themes, we dissect the canvas from its most visible composition to its deepest significance.


“The Battle of San Romano” by Paolo Uccello. Uccello represents the passionate quest of perspective, a great curiosity for geometrical shapes, colour and above all, movement. The subject of his most famous painting is the Battle of San Romano in the Tuscan hills in 1432, a battle that opposed the soldiers of Firenze and those of Sienna. It becomes a wonder for the eyes and the soul, inventing paradoxical images that will have effects on cubist painters and surrealists.