Paolo Uccello
As in the fresco of Sir John Hawkwood, Uccello does not use many colours. The pictures are painted in white, pale grey, blue grey and just a little black. The landscape is grey, the water is blue-grey, the people are white with grey shadows. But the paintings are made lively by all the bits of red. All the man-made things, like the Ark, the old doors, barrels, up-side-down tables and broken things that are floating on the flood water, are all painted in the same red colour. Some of the people are wearing big black and white hats that were popular in Florence. In the disaster of the flood, one man is floating in a barrel. Another man, seeing an old man standing on a little hill, has grabbed him round the ankles to pull himself up. Another man, with part of his great big fashionable hat slipped down around his neck, is thumping on the wall of the ark with a club. The wind is blowing, the rain is pouring down and twigs and branches are flying in the wind. It is a scene of terror.