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MANTEGNA, ANDREA (1431–1506)
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See also:MANTEGNA, See also:ANDREA (1431–1506) , one of the See also:chief heroes in the advance of See also:painting in See also:Italy, was See also:born in See also:Vicenza, of very humble parentage. It is said that in his earliest boyhood Andrea was, like See also:Giotto, put to shepherding or See also:cattle-herding; this is not likely, and can at any See also:rate have lasted only a very See also:short while, as his natural See also:genius for See also:art See also:developed with singular precocity, and excited the See also:attention of See also:Francesco Squarcione, who entered him in the gild of painters before he had completed his See also:eleventh See also:year.
Squarcione,- whose See also:original vocation was tailoring, appears to have had a remarkable See also:enthusiasm for See also:ancient art, and a proportionate See also:faculty for acting, with profit to himself and others, as a sort of See also:artistic middleman; his own performances as a painter were merely mediocre. He travelled in Italy, and. perhaps in See also:Greece also, See also:collecting See also:antique statues, reliefs, vases, &c., forming the largest collection then extant of such See also:works, making drawings from them himself, and throwing open his stores for others to study from, and then undertaking works on See also:commission for which his pupils no less than himself were made available. As many as one See also:hundred and See also:thirty-seven painters and pictorial students passed through his school, established towards 1440, which became famous all over Italy. Mantegna was, as he deserved to be, Squarcione's favourite See also:pupil. Squarcione adopted him as his son, and purposed making him the See also:heir ofhis See also:fortune. Andrea was only seventeen when he painted, in the See also: This connexion of Andrea with the pictorial See also:rival of Squarcione is generally assigned as the See also:reason why the latter became alienated from the son of his See also:adoption, and always afterwards hostile to him. Another See also:suggestion, which rests, however, merely on its own See also:internal See also:probability, is that Squarcione had at the outset used his pupil Andrea as the unavowed executant of certain commissions, but that after a while Andrea began painting on his own See also:account, thus injuring the professional interests of his chief. The remarkably definite and original See also:style formed by Mantegna may be traced out as founded on the study of the antique in Squarcione's atelier, followed by a diligent application of principles of work exemplified by See also:Paolo Uccello and See also:Donatello, with the See also:practical guidance and example of Jacopo Bellini in the sequel.
Among the other See also:early works of Mantegna are the See also:fresco of two See also:saints over the entrance See also:porch of the church of S. See also:Antonio in Padua, 1452, and an See also:altar-piece of St See also:Luke and other saints for the church of S. Giustina, now in the Brera See also:Gallery in See also:Milan, 1453. It is probable, however, that before this See also:time some of the pupils of Squarcione, including Mantegna, had already begun that See also:series of frescoes in the See also:chapel of S. Cristoforo, in the church of S. See also:Agostino degli Eremitani, by. which the See also:great painter's reputation was fully confirmed, and which remain to this See also:day conspicuous among his finest achievements.' The now censorious Squarcione found much to See also:carp at in the earlier works of this series, illustrating the See also:life of St See also: Figures slim, See also:muscular and bony, See also:action impetuous but of arrested See also:energy, tawny landscape, gritty with littering pebbles, See also:mark the athletic hauteur of his style. He never changed, though he developed and perfected, the manner which he had adopted in Padua; his colouring, at first rather neutral and undecided, strengthened and matured. There is throughout his works more balancing of colour than fineness of See also:tone. One of his great aims was See also:optical illusion, carried out by a mastery of See also:perspective which, though not always impeccably correct, nor absolutely superior in principle to the highest contemporary point of attainment, was worked out by himself with strenuous labour, and an effect of actuality astonishing in those times. Successful and admired though he was in Padua, Mantegna See also:left his native See also:city at an early age, and never afterwards resettled ' His See also:fellow-workers were Bono of See also:Ferrara, Ansuino of Forli, and Niccolo Pizzolo, to whom considerable sections of the fresco-paintings are to be assigned. The acts of St James and St Christopher are the leading subjects of the series. St James Exorcizing may have been commenced by Pizzolo, and completed by Mantegna. The Calling of St James to the Apostleship appears to be Mantegna's See also:design, partially carried out by Pizzolo; the subjects of St James baptizing, his appearing before the See also:judge, and going to See also:execution, and most of the legend of St Christopher, are entirely by Mantegna. there; the hostility of Squarcione has been assigned as the cause. The See also:rest of his life was passed in See also:Verona, See also:Mantua and See also:Rome—chiefly Mantua; See also:Venice and See also:Florence have also been named, but without See also:confirmation. It may have been in 1459 that he went to Verona; and he painted, though not on the spot, a See also:grand altar-piece for the church of S. See also:Zeno, a Madonna and angels, with four saints on each See also:side. The See also:Marquis Lodovico See also:Gonzaga of Mantua had for some time been pressing Mantegna to enter his service; and the following year, 1460, was perhaps the one in which he actually established himself at the Mantuan See also:court, residing at first from time to time at See also:Goito, but, from See also:December 1466 onwards, with his See also:family in Mantua itself. His engagement was for a See also:salary of 75 lire (about £30) a See also:month, a sum so large for that See also:period as to mark conspicuously the high regard in which his art was held. He was in fact the first painter of any See also:eminence ever domiciled in Mantua. He built a stately See also:house in the city, and adorned it with a multitude of paintings. The house remains, but the pictures have perished. Some of his early Mantuan works are in that apartment of the See also:Castello which is termed the See also:Camera degli Sposi—full compositions in fresco, including various portraits of the Gonzaga family, and some figures of genii, &c. In 1488 he went to Rome at the See also:request of See also:Pope See also:Innocent VIII., to paint the frescoes in the chapel of the See also:Belvedere in the Vatican; the marquis of Mantua (Federigo) created him a See also:cavaliere before his departure. This series of frescoes, including a noted " See also:Baptism of See also:Christ," was ruthlessly destroyed by See also:Pius VI. in laying out the Museo Pio-Clementino. The pope treated Mantegna with less liberality than he had been used to at the Mantuan court; but on the whole their connexion, which ceased in 1490; was not unsatisfactory to either party. Mantegna then returned to Mantua, and went on with a series of works—the nine See also:tempera-pictures, each of them 9 It. square, of the "See also:Triumph of See also:Caesar " —which he had probably begun before his leaving for Rome, and which are now in See also:Hampton Court. These superbly invented and designed compositions, gorgeous with all splendour of subject-See also:matter and See also:accessory, and with the classical learning and enthusiasm of one of the See also:master-See also:spirits of the age, have always been accounted of the first See also:rank among Mantegna's works. They were sold in 1628 along with the bulk of the Mantuan art treasures, and were not, as is commonly said, plundered in the See also:sack of Mantua in 1630. They are now greatly damaged by patchy repaintings. Another work of Mantegna's later years was the so-called " Madonna della See also:Vittoria," now in the Louvre. It was painted in tempera about 1495, in See also:commemoration of the See also:battle of Fornovo, which Ginfrancesco Gonzaga found it convenient to represent to his lieges as an See also:Italian victory, though in fact it had been a See also:French victory; the church which originally housed the picture was built from Mantegna's own design.. The Madonna is here depicted with various saints, the See also:archangel See also:Michael and St See also:Maurice holding her See also:mantle, which is extended over the kneeling Gianfrancesco Gonzaga, amid a profusion of See also:rich festooning and other accessory. Though not in all respects of his highest See also:order of execution, this See also:counts among the most obviously beautiful £nd' attractive of Mantegna's works—from which the qualities of beauty and attraction are often excluded, in the stringent pursuit of those other excellences more germane to his severe genius, tense energy passing into See also:haggard See also:passion. See also:Vasari eulogizes Mantegna for his courteous, distinguished and praiseworthy deportment, although there are indications of his having been nota little litigious in disposition. With his fellow-pupils at Padua he had been affectionate; and for two of them, Dario da Trevigi and Marco Zoppo, he retained a steady friendship. That he had a high See also:opinion of himself was natural, for no artist of his See also:epoch could produce more See also:manifest vouchers of marked and progressive attainment. He became very expensive in his habits, See also:fell at times into difficulties, and had to urge his valid claims upon the marquis's attention. After his return to Mantua from Rome his prosperity was at its height, until the See also:death of his wife. He then formed some other connexion, and became at an advanced age the father of a natural son, Giovanni Andrea; and at the last, although he continued launching out into various expenses and schemes, he had serious tribulations, such as the banishment from Mantua of his son Francesco, who had incurred the marquis's displeasure. Perhaps the aged master and connoisseur regarded as barely less trying the hard See also:necessity of parting with a beloved antique bust of See also:Faustina. Very soon after this transaction he died in Mantua, on the 13th of See also:September 1506. In 1517 a handsome See also:monument was set up to him by his sons in the church of S. Andrea, where he had painted the altar-piece of the See also:mortuary chapel. Mantegna was no less eminent as an engraver, though his See also:history in that respect is somewhat obscure, partly because he never signed or dated any of his plates, unless in one single disputed instance, 1472. The account which has come down to us is that Mantegna began See also:engraving in Rome, prompted by the engravings produced by See also:Baccio Baldini of Florence after Sandro See also:Botticelli; nor is there anything See also:positive to invalidate this account, except the See also:consideration that it would consign all the numerous and elaborate engravings made by Mantegna to the last sixteen or seventeen years of his life, which seems a scanty space for them, and besides the earlier engravings indicate an earlier period of his artistic style. It has been suggested that he began engraving while still in Padua, under the tuition of a distinguished See also:goldsmith, Niccolo. He engraved about fifty plates, according to the usual reckoning; some thirty of them are mostly accounted indisputable—often large, full of figures, and highly studied. Some See also:recent connoisseurs, however, ask us to re-strict to seven the number of his genuine extant engravings—which pictuye See also:pears unreasonable. Among the See also:principal examples are " See also:Roman Triumphs " (not the same compositions as the Hampton Court res), " A Bacchanal Festival," " See also:Hercules and See also:Antaeus," pictures), Marine Gods," " See also:Judith with the See also:Head of Holophernes, the " Deposition from the See also:Cross," the " Entombment," the " Resurrection," the " See also:Man of Sorrows," the " Virgin in a Grotto." Mantegna has sometimes been credited with the important invention of engraving with the burin on See also:copper. This claim cannot be sustained on a comparison of See also:dates, but at any rate he introduced the art into upper Italy. Several of his engravings are supposed to be executed on some See also:metal less hard than copper. The technique of. himself and his followers is characterized by the strongly marked forms of the design, and by the oblique formal hatchings of the shadows. The prints are frequently to be found in two states, or See also:editions. In the first See also:state the prints have been taken off with the See also:roller, or even by See also:hand-pressing, and they are weak in tint; in the second state the See also:printing See also:press has been used, and the See also:ink is stronger.
The influence of Mantegna on the style and tendency of his age was very marked, and extended See also:riot only to his own flourishing Mantuan school, but over Italian art generally. His vigorous perspectives and trenchant foreshortenings pioneered the way to other artists: in solid antique See also:taste, and the See also:power of reviving the aspect of a remote age with some approach to See also:system and consistency, he distanced all contemporary competition. He did not, however, leave behind him many scholars of superior faculty. His two legitimate sons were painters of only See also:ordinary ability. His favourite pupil was known as Carlo del Mantegna; Caroto of Verona was another pupil, Bonsignori an imitator. Giovanni Bellini," in his earlier works, obviously followed the See also:lead of his See also:brother-in-See also:law Andrea. -
The works painted by Mantegna, apart from his frescoes, are rot numerous; some thirty-five to See also:forty are regarded as fullyauthenticated. We may name, besides those already specified—in the See also:Naples Museum, " St Euphemia," a See also:fine early work; in Casa Melzi, Milan, the " Madonna and See also:Child with Chanting Angels " (1461) ; in the See also:Tribune of the Uffizi, Florence, three pictures remarkable for scrupulous finish; in the See also:Berlin Museum, the " Dead Christ with two Angels " in the Louvre, the two celebrated pictures of mythic See also:allegory—" See also:Parnassus " and " See also:Minerva Triumphing over the Vices -in the See also:National Gallery, See also:London, the " Agony in the See also:Garden," the Virgin and Child Enthroned, with the Baptist and the Magdalen," a See also:late example; the monochrome of " Vestals, brought from See also: Not to speak of , earlier periods, a great See also:deal has been written concerning Mantegna of late ears. See the works by Maud Crutwell (1901), See also:Paul Kristeller (1901)) H. Thode (1897), Paul Yriarte (1901), Julia See also:Cartwright, Mantegna and See also:Francia (1881). (W. M. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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