Lamentation over the Dead Christ (Mantegna)

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The Lamentation over the Dead Christ

Andrea Mantegna, c. 1480

Tempera on canvas

68 × 81 cm

Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

The Lamentation over the Dead Christ is a painting created by the Italian Renaissance artist Andrea Mantegna around 1480.

The painting portrays the dead Christ supine on a marble plank bed. He is flanked by the Virgin, St. John, and Mary Magdalene, who are weeping for his death.

The subject is a theme common to Renaissance art; present here are a rich contrast of light and shadow, and a profound sense of pathos. The realism and tragedy of the scene are enhanced by the violent perspective, which foreshortens and dramatizes the recumbent figure, stressing the anatomical details: in particular, Christ's thorax. The holes in Christ's hands and feet, as well as the faces of the two mourners, are portrayed without any concession to idealism or rhetoric. The sharply drawn drapery which covers the corpse contributes to the dramatic effect. Unique to this painting is a design that places the central focus of the image on Christ's genitals - an artistic choice that is open to a multitude of interpretations.

The painting displays a Renaissance innovation in representing the human figure, as compared to conceptions of the medieval period, which tended toward symbolism and artifice. Mantegna managed instead to paint a very specific representation of physical and emotional trauma, contrary to the spiritual ideal.

Mantegna probably completed this painting for his personal funerary chapel. It was found by his sons in his studio after his death and sold to pay debts. The painting is currently located in the Pinacoteca di Brera of Milan, Italy.

[edit] The Lamentation in popular culture

A visual reference to this painting [1] is made in the 2003 film The Return (Vozvrashcheniye) by Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev. [2]

The Lamentation over the Dead Christ and the easel on which it was painted form the basis of a literary work in the genre of ecphrasis by Kelly Grovier entitled "The Easel of Mantegna". [3]

[edit] Sources

• La Grande Storia dell'Arte - Il Quattrocento, Sole 24 Ore, 2005
• Faces of Christ, Thomas, D., 1979
• Andrea Mantegna and the Italian Renaissance, Joseph Manca, 2006