_Marco Zoppo_ (Bolognese; painted 1471-1498).
This unattractive painter was born in Bologna, and became a
pupil in the school of Squarcione at Padua. His work shows also
the influence of Cosimo Tura at Florence.
It is interesting to compare the various representations of the Dead
Christ, or Pietà, which may be seen in the National Gallery. The
subject, it may first be noted, was treated in very different ways.
"Convention did not early harden down into fixity of composition or
crystallise into rigid forms. A certain plasticity of imagination was
permitted from the beginning; a certain indefiniteness of nomenclature
and scope remained habitual to the end" (Grant Allen: see also Mrs.
Jameson's _History of our Lord_, ii. 226). Sometimes the subject of
the "Pietà" is the Mater Dolorosa, weeping over the body of the dead
Saviour, and attended by saints (266, 1427) or angels (180). At other
times the dead Saviour is supported by angels only (22, 219, 602), or,
as in this picture, by saints. Sometimes the dead figure is represented
lying at full length (22, 180); at other times it is a half-figure
showing above a tomb or ledge (219, 266, 602, 590, 1427). Still more
interesting is a comparison between these pictures for the illustration
it gives of the different sentiment of different painters or schools.
The picture before us is hard and dry; that of Crivelli (602) is full
of tenderness. With some painters it is the physical horror, the bodily
distortion that appeals to them in this subject. With others it is the
pity and the sorrow (as, pre-eminently, in Francia's, 180).