PADUAN SCHOOL: ANDREA MANTEGNA
“Let us pray
God’s grave to keep God’s image in repute.”
“The Paduans are great scholars,” says an Italian proverb, and from that
city of classic traditions comes Mantegna. He may be said to be the only
illustrious painter of the school. Squarcione—of whose work the National
Gallery possesses no example—was its founder, Mantegna was its crown. He
was of humble origin—a little lad who kept cattle in the fields, and
who, one day, Squarcione took home, adopted, and taught (1431–1506). The
artist was renowned as a teacher and the boy was his favourite pupil.
When Andrea Mantegna grew up he became intimate with his master’s
rivals, Jacobo Bellini of Venice and his two sons, Gentile and Giovanni.
He ultimately married the daughter Niccolosia. Squarcione was angry at
Mantegna’s friendship with the Bellinis and would have nothing more to
do with him.
He surpassed all rivals in the sense of style, this one great painter of
the Paduan school. Squarcione complained that Mantegna’s pictures looked
like sculptured reliefs, forgetting that it was he who had not only
taught him drawing, but had taught him to reverence the immortal works
of antiquity. Squarcione had travelled through Greece and Italy, and had
brought home casts of all the noble statues. His pictures are formal;
they entirely lack inspiration, but he was unrivalled as a teacher.
Mantegna, from study of the casts his master had brought home, acquired
a magnificent sense of form and of drapery.
His two pictures—“Samson and Delilah” (1145) and “The Triumph of Scipio”
(902)—were intended to represent sculptured reliefs. Scipio has been
chosen by the senate as the worthiest man to receive the image of
Sybele; the goddess is seen carried in a litter. The wild figure of
Claudia, mad with joy at having established her innocence, flings
herself before the image. It depicts Mantegna’s power of presenting
violent passion and movement. In these he had no rival. You must study
these wonderful monochromes; they show Mantegna’s severe and statuesque
ideal, his restrained emotion. They show above all his enthusiastic love
of the antique—a love that he shared with his time and that made him its
exponent. In them he gives way to no soft feeling, but if you will look
at his picture, the “Mother and Child” (274), you will see that he can
be tender enough. The Virgin is a country girl all womanly and simple,
holding her Baby on her knee. On either side of her stands St. John the
Baptist and Mary Magdalene—magnificent figures clothed with the most
elaborate drapery, the folds of which display rather than hide the
outline of their forms. The Magdalene, looking upwards, holds the box of
ointment which she is later to break over the feet of the divine Son of
man. St. John the Baptist bears a cross, to which is attached a scroll
carrying the inscription in Latin, “Behold the Lamb of God.” The Virgin,
with her shrouded head, is clothed in the same extraordinarily beautiful
drapery. There is a shrinking sweetness in her look and attitude. This
picture is one of the immortal works in the National Gallery; it will
appeal to you more than the sculpturesque friezes that also bear
Mantegna’s signature.