_Giovanni Mansueti_ (Venetian: born about 1450).
Of the life of this painter little is known. The registers of
San Giovanni, Venice, tell us that he was lame; and by his own
authority we learn that he was a pupil of Giovanni Bellini,
and a believer in the miracle of the Cross, which took place
in 1474, and forms the subject of a picture by him, now in
the Academy of Venice. His pictures in that collection are
interesting as illustrating Venetian costume and architecture,
and Ruskin finds "much that is delightful in them." Mansueti's
figures, says Kugler (i. 332), are short and stumpy, and he
lacks the variety of expression and action of Gentile Bellini,
and the brilliancy of colour and fancy of Carpaccio.
This picture--which is not a very ambitious or characteristic
illustration of the painter--gives a symbolic representation of the
Crucifixion. "In front of an architectural screen--on the right and
left of which is an open tabernacle in sculptured stone, enclosing,
instead of the usual statue of the Virgin or a saint, an angel singing,
and holding an instrument of the Passion of our Saviour--lie the spear,
and the sponge upon the reed. Between these is a Majesty of the usual
type, the flesh of the Redeemer being, doubtless owing to the partial
fading of the carnations or the fact of the under-paint coming through,
more greenish and opaque than the Venetian artists, especially the
school of Bellini, affected. At the foot of the group the Magdalen
kneels in the act of kissing the Saviour's feet. On her left stands the
Virgin, and on the same side are two men, representing, of course, the
Magi and the shepherds who attended the nativity of our Lord. On our
right stand SS. John the Baptist and Peter, in front of whom kneels a
man who holds the pincers as an implement of the Passion. The picture,
as becomes its origin, is bright in colour as well as in its effect and
local tints, very carefully and almost laboriously as well as timidly
drawn; the architecture would not discredit Peter Neeffs" (_Athenæum_,
24th October 1896). The picture is signed, and dated 1492.