_Andrea Mantegna_ (Paduan: 1431-1506).
Andrea Mantegna, the greatest master of the Paduan School, has
a commanding name in art history, so much so that many writers
describe the epoch of painting (from 1450 to 1500 and a little
onwards), of which he was one of the chief representatives,
as the _Mantegnesque_ period. "No painter more remarkable for
originality than Mantegna ever lived. Whoever has learned to
relish this great master will never overlook a scrap by him;
for while his works sometimes show a certain austerity and
harshness, they have always a force and will which belong
to no one else" (Layard). "Intensity may be said to be the
characteristic of Mantegna as an artist. Deeply in earnest,
he swerved from his purpose neither to the right nor to the
left. In expressing tragic emotion, he sometimes touched a
realism beyond the limits prescribed by poetic art. So, too,
he never arrived at an ideal of female beauty. But he could be
as tender as he was stern; and we forget the homely plainness
of his Madonnas in the devoted and boding mother or the benign
protectress. His children are always childlike and without
self-consciousness. His drawing was remarkably correct. An
occasional lengthiness in his figures adds to their dignity,
and never oversteps possible nature. Drapery he treated as a
means of displaying the figure. This peculiarity he derived
from an almost too exclusive study of ancient sculpture. Yet so
thoroughly does it accord with his whole style, that none would
willingly miss a single fold which the master thought worthy of
almost infinite care" (Burton). He was a _tempera_ painter, and
"excelled in harmoniously broken tones, but with little attempt
at those rich and deep effects which by the practice of art his
later Venetian contemporaries initiated." "He loved allegory
and symbolism; but with him they clothed a living spirit." The
beauty of classical bas-relief entered deep into his soul and
ruled his imagination. His classical pictures are "statuesque
and stately, but glow with the spirit of revived antiquity"
(Symonds). He was equally distinguished as an engraver and a
painter, and his plates spread his fame and influence widely
abroad.
Mantegna was born at Padua,[128] and according to Vasari, was
originally, like Giotto, a shepherd boy. Like Giotto, too,
he early displayed great aptitude for drawing, so much that
when only ten years old he was adopted by Squarcione as son
and pupil. Squarcione was an indifferent painter, but must
have been an able teacher, and it was from him that Mantegna
imbibed his love of the antique. It was Squarcione's intention
to make him his heir, but Mantegna married a daughter of
Jacopo Bellini, Squarcione's rival; "and when this was told
to Squarcione he was so much displeased with Andrea that they
were ever afterwards enemies." Of Mantegna's association with
his brother-in-law, Giovanni Bellini, the pictures numbered 726
and 1417 in this gallery are an interesting record. Mantegna
soon obtained recognition. Among the most important of his
early works are the frescoes of the chapel of St. James and St.
Christopher in the church of the Eremitani at Padua. Copies of
some of these may be seen in the Arundel Society's collection.
Of about the same date is "The Agony in the Garden," No.
1417. To his early period belong also the "St. George" in the
Venice Academy, and the triptych in the Uffizi. The picture
now before us, the beautiful "Madonna della Vittoria," and
the "Parnassus" of the Louvre belong to a maturer time. In
1466 Mantegna went, at the invitation of the Marquis Ludovico
Gonzaga, to the court of Mantua, and there he remained till his
death, as painter-in-ordinary at a salary of £30 a year--with
the exception of two years spent in painting for Pope Innocent
VIII. at Rome. Many of Mantegna's frescoes at Mantua are now
obliterated; but some are preserved in the Camera degli Sposi
in the Ducal Palace, and in spite of restorations, exhibit some
of the master's characteristics in perfection. For the palace
of St. Sebastiano at Mantua, he painted in _tempera_ on canvas
the "Triumph of Cæsar," now at Hampton Court. Although much
defaced, this large composition still proclaims the genius of
the master who "loved to resuscitate the ancient world, and
render it to the living eye in all its detail, and with all its
human interest." The sketch by Rubens in our Gallery, No. 278,
was made from a portion of Mantegna's cartoons. In a similar
style is the master's "Triumph of Scipio," No. 902, completed
shortly before his death. At Rome (1488-1490) he decorated the
chapel of the Belvedere, now demolished.
Though in the service of princes, Mantegna knew his worth, and
was wont to say that "Ludovico might be proud of having in him
something that no other prince in Italy could boast of." He
liked, too, to live in the grand style of his age. It appears
that he spent habitually more money than he could afford, and
after his death his sons had to sell the pictures in his studio
for the payment of his creditors. Still more was he a child of
his age--the age of the revival of classical learning--in his
love for the antique. He spent much of his money in forming
a collection of Greek and Roman antiquities, and the forced
sale of its chief ornament, a bust of Faustina, is said to
have broken his heart. "He was the friend of students, eagerly
absorbing the knowledge brought to light by antiquarian
research; and thus independently of his high value as a
painter, he embodies for us in art that sincere passion for the
ancient world which was the dominating intellectual impulse of
his age." With Mantegna, classical antiques were not merely
the foibles of a collector, but the models of his art. He was
"always of opinion," says Vasari, "that good antique statues
were more perfect, and displayed more beauty in the different
parts, than is exhibited by nature." Of some of his works what
Vasari adds is no doubt true--that they recall the idea of
stone rather than of living flesh. But Mantegna studied nature
closely too; for, as Goethe said of his pictures, "the study of
the antique gives form, and nature adds appropriate movement
and the health of life." Mantegna died at Mantua and was
buried in a chapel of the Church of Sant' Andrea. The expenses
incurred by him in founding and decorating this family chapel
had added seriously to his embarrassments. "Over his grave was
placed a bronze bust, most noble in modelling and perfect in
execution. The broad forehead, with its deeply cloven furrows,
the stern and piercing eyes, the large lips compressed with
nervous energy, the massive nose, the strength of jaw and
chin, and the superb clusters of the hair escaping from a
laurel-wreath upon the royal head, are such as realise for us
our notion of a Roman in the days of the republic. Mantegna's
own genius has inspired this masterpiece, which tradition
assigns to the medallist Sperando Maglioli. Whoever wrought it
must have felt the incubation of the mighty painter's spirit,
and have striven to express in bronze the character of his
uncompromising art" (Symonds: _The Renaissance in Italy_,
iii. 203). A plaster cast from this bust hangs on one of the
staircases in our Gallery. Mantegna's second son, Francesco,
who in his father's later years had assisted in his studio,
afterwards practised independently. See Nos. 639, 1106, 1381.
"One of the choicest pictures in the National Gallery," exquisite
alike in sentiment, in drawing, and in purity of colour. "Being in an
admirable state of preservation, it enables us to become acquainted
with all the characteristics of Mantegna's style, and above all to
enjoy the refinement in his rendering of the human forms, the accuracy
in his drawing, the conscientiousness in the rendering of the smallest
details" (_Richter_). For the latter point notice especially the
herbage in the foreground. Mantegna, says Mr. Ruskin, is "the greatest
leaf-painter of Lombardy," and the "exquisite outlines" here show
"the symmetry and precision of his design" (_Catalogue of Educational
Series_, p. 52). The draperies also are "of extraordinary beauty
in design and colour. The rose-coloured dress of the Virgin is most
delicately heightened with gold, and the draperies of the two saints
are of materials shot with changing colours of exquisite harmonies"
(_Poynter_). Very sweet is the expression of mingled humility and
tenderness in the mother of the Divine Child. On her right stands St.
John the Baptist, the great preacher of repentance; on her left Mary
Magdalen, the woman who repented. The Baptist bears a cross and on the
scroll attached to it are written the words (in Latin), "Behold the
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world." The Magdalen
carries the vase of ointment--the symbol at once of her conversion
and her love ("She brought an alabaster box of ointment, and began
to wash his feet with tears.... And he said unto her, Thy sins are
forgiven"). "Mantegna combines with the most inexhaustible imagination
and invention and power, which include the whole range of art, from the
most playful fantasy to the profoundest and most passionate tragedy, a
skill of workmanship so minutely and marvellously delicate as to defy
imitation. Look at the refinement with which the drapery is drawn, the
wonderful delicacy of handling with which the gold-lights are laid on,
the beautiful and loving spirit which has presided over the execution
of the foliage in the background, and indeed of every detail in the
picture, and you will begin to have an understanding of what I mean by
workmanship as such, and how an artist proceeds whose hand has been
thoroughly trained, and who is truly in love with his art" (Poynter's
_Lectures on Art_, p. 127).