Tags
1400s, 15th Century, Andrea Mantegna, art, Artists, Italy, Mantua, Painters, Paintings, Religious, Renaissance
Name: Andrea Mantegna
Work: Painter
Born: 1431
Died: 1506
Worked In: Padua/Verona/Venice/Mantua, Italy
Period: Italian Renaissance
What I have learnt about his work in general:
Andrea Mantegna had great interest in the human figure which he often explored and painted under extreme perspectives, demonstrating his mastery of depth and foreshortening. He was also fascinated with Ancient Rome and Antiquity, and developed a style of painting in which his figures looked like classical sculptures. He was court artist for three generations of the Gonzaga family in Mantua completing numerous paintings, frescoes and engravings.
The Lamentation over the Dead Christ, Andrea Mantegna
Tempera on canvas
~1480
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan
This painting portrays the dead Christ on a marble slab, with the mourning Virgin Mary and St. John. I believe Mantegna wanted this to be a shocking image, which he achieves through the extreme foreshortening of the body, making it appear imposing and swollen, and through the intense realism with the grey, wrinkled flesh and draped, discoloured cloth. This emphasises the stark reality of Christ’s death, and the means of his death is also stressed through the nail wounds in his feet and hands, which almost appear to reach out towards the viewer.
The Arts and Culture Fix 
I’ve been to the Pinacoteca di Brera in December and seen this amazing artwork. You just keep on looking at the painting and don’t want to leave. It’s like a magnet, I kept on turning back to see it again and again.