Mantegna.

Andrea Mantegna was born about 1431 in the Republic of Venice and he grew up in Padua. He became the apprentice of Francesco Squarcione an archaeologist, painter and dealer in antiquities. Squarcione's workshop was famous throughout Italy and it was here that his young pupil studied Roman art and sculpture. The artist's main influences at this time are Donatello and classical sculpture.

Squarcione was quite a prickly character and he soon fell out with his precocious young pupil, and the apprenticeship finally ended in violent argument and a lawsuit.

Andrea was known to be working on frescoes for the Ovetari Chapel in 1448 when he was only seventeen but this work was almost destroyed in a bombing raid in 1944. In this series of paintings the use of his worms-eye view is very evident in the St. James led to his Execution, and is a good example of the artist's understanding of perspective.

"St. James led to his Execution."
Only photographs exist of this work, it was destroyed during the allied bombing in WW2. (s)

In 1454 the artist married Nicolosia the daughter of Jacopo Bellini and so became the brother in law of the painters Giovanni and Gentile Bellini.

Between 1456 and 1459 Andrea painted a triptych for the altarpiece of San Zeno the main church of Verona.

"The San-Zeno Altarpiece"
1456-1459 Verona. (w)

"The Agony in the Garden"
From "The San Zeno Altarpiece" (w)

In 1460 Mantegna left Padua and settled in Mantua and was appointed court painter to the Gonzaga family. He painted the Camera degli Sposi a cycle that was completed in 1474.

Andrea's fascination with St Sebastian is evident, he painted the subject several times with versions in Vienna, Paris and Venice.

"St Sebastian"
1480 Canvas, 255 x 140 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris (w)

Personal opinion:-

This is the version in the Louvre and is by far the largest of the three Sebastian’s'. I love the two guys chatting in the bottom right corner, they are waking past the scene of the martyrdom in a nonchalant manor and could almost be on a Sunday stroll. Only the bow and arrows suggest that they are indeed executioners.

Mantegna was something of a recluse in his later years, although he continued to paint despite his ill health. The most famous and dramatic of his perspective effects is found in his "Cristo Scorto" (The Dead Christ) found in his studio after his death on September 13, 1506.

"Cristo Scorto"(The Dead Christ)
Tempera on canvas, 68x81 cm, 1490 Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan.

Note the extreme foreshortening of the body of Christ and the almost metallic quality of the clothing, typical Mantegna traits. (w)




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