Lamentation of Christ (Mantegna)
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| Lamentation of Christ |
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| Andrea Mantegna , around 1480 (?) |
| Tempera on canvas |
| 66 x 81.3 cm |
| Pinacoteca di Brera , Milan |
The Lamentation of Christ , in literature also Cristo in scorto , is a painting by Andrea Mantegna . It was created in the second half of the 15th century and is considered to be his "most extraordinary" work because of the extreme shortened perspective of the depiction of the body of Christ .
Motif and period of manufacture
The motif of Christ removed from the cross and weeping comes only indirectly from the Bible (cf. Lk. 23, 49). For the most part it goes back to representations in apocryphal writings and their reception by later works. It is not known when Mantegna created the painting. The years between around 1457 and after 1500 are mentioned as a conceivable period. Most of the literature assumes that the work was created around 1480. The picture is one of five paintings that were found when the master died and were not commissioned. Mantegna probably painted the picture for his own burial chapel in the church of Sant'Andrea in Mantua.
It is certain that he took up impressions of the Trinity fresco created by Andrea del Castagno in the church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence. In this work, Christ is depicted still hanging on the cross, greatly foreshortened from the head.
presentation
The figure shows Christ removed from the cross. He lies on a red-veined marble bench , the lower half of his body is covered by a cloth smeared with blood and tears. The three mourning figures on the left side of the bier are (from the front) the apostle John , Mary with a cloth and, half covered by this, probably Mary Magdalene .
The viewer's point of view on the body is unusual. Through the chosen method of representation, the viewer moves directly to the stone on which the person is lying. The extremely realistic image of the crucified Christ shows that Mantegna had an exact knowledge of anatomy and also mastered the perspective representation. The vertical shortening of the body, known in the Renaissance as in scurto or in scorto , means that the viewer's gaze first perceives the wounds on the foot and hands, then the injury in the side and then the face of Christ. All details are executed in "ruthless attention to detail", for example the face still marked by agony. The figures of the mourners are also depicted realistically and naturalistically, especially the features of Mary and John.
Stefano Zuffi comments on this picture: “Mantegna's harshness of the figure drawing, which is driven to the extreme, makes no concessions to the soft color gradations that emerged in the painting of Venice at the end of the 15th century. On the threshold of a new century, Mantegna [...] formulates an out-of-date, but unambiguous commitment to painting that is based on strict contours and sharp line drawing ” .
Theological hints
Recent research deals with two objects represented in the painting: the ointment vessel depicted to the right of Christ's head and the marble bier on which the crucified one lies; it is the ointment stone of Christ himself. The actual subject of the work would then be the Jewish anointing, the sacred object not the body, but the important relic of the stone, which was found in the fall of Constantinople in 1453, i.e. only a few years before the painting was made, was lost. The picture can therefore be understood as a call to a crusade .
literature
- Wolfgang Braunfels : Small Italian Art History . DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 1984, ISBN 3-7701-1509-0 .
- Herbert Alexander Stützer: Painting of the Italian Renaissance . DuMont's library of great painters, DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 1979, ISBN 3-7701-1118-4 .
- Rolf Toman (Ed.): The art of the Italian Renaissance - architecture, sculpture, painting, drawing . Tandem Verlag, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-8331-4582-7 .
- Manfred Wundram: Art of the World - Renaissance , Holle Verlag, Baden-Baden 1980.
- Stefano Zuffi: The Renaissance - Art, Architecture, History, Masterpieces . DuMont Buchverlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8321-9113-9 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Toman (ed.): The art of the Italian Renaissance - architecture, sculpture, painting, drawing , p. 370
- ^ So for example Stützer: Painting of the Italian Renaissance , p. 23; Braunfels: Small Italian Art History , p. 267; Zuffi: The Renaissance - Art, Architecture, History, Masterpieces , p. 155
- ↑ a b Braunfels: Little Italian Art History , p. 266
- ↑ a b c Zuffi: The Renaissance - Art, Architecture, History, Masterpieces , p. 155
- ↑ Wundram: Art of the World - Renaissance , p. 202
- ↑ a b c d Stützer: Painting of the Italian Renaissance , p. 22
- ↑ For details see : Toman (Ed.): The Art of the Italian Renaissance - Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Drawing , p. 370f.
- ↑ Toman (Ed.): The art of the Italian Renaissance - architecture, sculpture, painting, drawing , p. 371