The Hunt in the Forest

Hunters, hounds, and beaters in brilliant red plunge into a dark wood after deer, the whole stampede funneling toward a single point deep among the trees. Uccello, so obsessed with perspective that the biographer Vasari pictured him sitting up all night marveling at its sweetness, turns the fallen logs, the spacing of the trunks, and the dwindling figures into a hidden geometric grid. It is also among the earliest nocturnes in Italian panel painting, the foliage nearly black, the costumes and the dogs' white coats flaring against it. A late work, and one of his most enchanting.