Andrea Mantegna

Background

Andrea Mantegna was born in about 1431 in Isola Mantegna, Italy (Isola di Carturo, Venetian Republic at the time). He was the second son of a poor woodworker Biagio Mantegna.

Education

A son of a carpenter, Andrea Mantegna tended sheep and completed other agricultural tasks in his childhood. Mantegna's extraordinary artistic talent was recognized early. After the death of his father, Mantegna was adopted by and became an apprentice of a Paduan teacher of painting and a collector of antiquities Francesco Squarcione in about 1442.

Andrea learned Latin and Roman sculpture under Squarcione. The high prevalence of the Renaissance Humanism and the general level of intellectual development in Padua played an important role in Mantegna's artistic formation by developing in him a lifelong interest in classical ideals and civilization. At the age of 17, Mantegna left Squarcione on the pretext that the latter had profited considerably from his services without giving due recompense.

Career

The start of Andrea Mantegna's career as an independent artist can be counted from 1448 when he disassociated himself from Squarcione's guardianship and set up a workshop in Padua. That same year, he received his first major commission, an altarpiece for the local Church of Santa Sofia. Now lost, the decoration demonstrated Mantegna's great experience according to an art historian Giorgio Vasari, although the painter was only seventeen years old at the time.

Such an unusual artistic maturity was also evident in the next project executed by Andrea Mantegna in collaboration with another former pupil of Squarcione, Niccolò Pizzolo, for the Ovetari Chapel in the Eremitani Church in Padua the following year. Left the only to finish the project during 1453-1456 after Pizzolo's death in a brawl, Mantegna masterly applied his knowledge of the monumental figure style of Tuscany and details of Roman architecture as well as his mastery of di sotto in su (from below to above) perspective for the fresco decoration.

Becoming part of the eminent artistic Bellini family in the early 1450s, Andrea Mantegna preferred his independent practice in Padua to the membership in the family studio. The reputation and reverence earned by the Eremitani frescoes provided the painter with a post at the local art school where he taught and portrayed scholars. He also worked on commissions from other patrons around the country.

Mantegna's talent and growing fame captured the attention of Ludovico Gonzaga, the Marquis of Mantua and one of the most influential city-state governors at the time, who appointed him a court painter in 1459. While on duty, Mantegna traveled to Florence and Pisa in 1466-1467, where he explored again the art of Donatello, Fra Filippo Lippi, Paolo Uccello, and Andrea del Castagno. During the same decade, the painter also produced such finest small-scale works as The Circumcision and the Venice St. George. The best known surviving work of Mantegna, Camera degli Sposi in the Palazzo Ducale at Mantua, also dates to the period.

The service at the Gonzaga court was certainly prosperous for Andrea Mantegna, who, in addition to good fixed income (15 ducats a month) and great respect, obtained an exclusive possibility to contact with famous humanists, intellectuals and artists of the time, including Alberti and Brunelleschi, and the Medici family of art patrons.

Such a good state of career affairs was broken for a while by the death of Ludovico in 1478 of the plague. Andrea Montegna's financial situation aggravated under Ludovico's successor Federico, and he had to ask for help from the powerful Florentine merchant prince Lorenzo de' Medici. Fortunately, the reign of Ludovico's son was short, and after the accession of young Francesco II in 1484, the financial conditions of the painter improved. The peak of Mantegna's mature period, the Triumph of Caesar, nine canvases depicting a Roman triumphal procession, is a vivid surviving example of works completed by the painter for his new patron. The decoration for the private chapel of Pope Innocent VIII in the Belvedere Palace in Rome was completed by Mantegna in 1488-1490.

Andrea Mantegna remained active during the last years of his life despite advanced age and poor health. The Madonna of the Victory of 1495, the 1497 Parnassus, a painting celebrating the marriage of Isabella d'Este to Francesco Gonzaga in 1490, and a 1502 Wisdom Overcoming the Vices for Isabella's studiolo are the ample proofs.

Achievements

• Andrea Mantegna's lifelong allegiance to the traditions of Classical antiquity in his art had a crucial influence on the subsequent generations of Renaissance artists, including Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer. By his thoroughgoing description of antique forms coupled with an instinctive sense of the political realities that underlay their original creation, Mantegna lent great impetus to the antique revival movement at mid-century. The standard of beauty he used in his canvases predominated both in painting and sculpture during the next 100 years.
  
  The invention of total spatial illusionism by the manipulation of perspective and foreshortening became the major contribution of Mantegna to fresco painting. The references to his Camera degli Sposi (Room of the Bride and Groom), the most vivid example of the three-dimensional effect attainted due the technique, have been subsequently apparent in the works of such artists as Antonio da Correggio (Assumption of the Virgin), Battista Gaulli (Triumph of the Name of Jesus), and Andrea Pozzo (Glorification of Saint Ignatius).
  
  In the 1480s, Mantegna was knighted, and the following decade, he was awarded the title of Count Palatine for the decoration of Pope Innocent VIII's private chapel in the Belvedere Palace in Rome. A funerary chapel in Mantua constructed in the painter's honor after his death, a sign of special esteem rare at the time, demonstrated how he was appreciated in the town while alive.

Works

More photos

• artwork

  • The Child Jesus in the manger

• drawing

  • Study for a Christ

  • Study of an Ancient Bas Relief of the Arch of Constantine

  • Children playing with masks

  • Molorchos making a sacrifice to Hercules

  • Hercules and Antaeus

  • Christ

  • The Triumph and Vespasian de Titus

  • Two Studies for Christ at the Column

  • Two holy women in prayer

  • The Entombment

  • Pieta

  • Three studies of elongated figures

  • Julius Caesar on his triumphal car

  • Study for a Flagellation

  • Soldiers

  • Saint Jerome reading with the Lion

  • Project for a monument to Virgil

• fresco

  • St. James the Great on his Way to Execution

  • Ceiling of the Camera Picta or Camera degli Sposi

• painting

  • The Virgin of Victory

    (The Madonna and Child Enthroned with Six Saints and Adore...)

  • The Resurrection

    (the right hand predella panel from the Altarpiece of St. ...)

  • Madonna and Angels

    (the central panel of Altarpiece of San Zeno in Verona)

  • St. Benedict, St. Lawrence, St. Gregory and St. John the Baptist

    (right panel of the Altarpiece of San Zeno in Verona)

  • The Ascension

    (the left hand panel from the Altarpiece)

  • The Dead Christ

    (also known as Lamentation of Christ)

  • Calvary

    (central predella panel from the St. Zeno of Verona altarp...)

  • Detail from Camera Picta

    (horse and groom with hunting dogs)

  • Adoration of the Magi

    (central panel from the Altarpiece)

  • Waitingservant with dogs

    (scene fragment)

  • Meeting of Duke Ludovico II Gonzaga with Cardinal Francesco Gonz

    ((fragment))

  • The court of the Gonzaga

    ((detail))

  • The agony in the garden

    ((detail))

  • Left panel of the Altarpiece of San Zeno in Verona

    (St. Peter and St. Paul, St.John the Evangelist, St. Zeno)

  • Scenes from the Life of St. Christopher

  • Madonna with St. Mary Magdalene and St. John the Baptist

  • The Holy Family

  • San Zeno Altarpiece

  • Virgin and Child

  • St. Sebastian

  • The Parnassus: Mars and Venus

  • The House of Ludovico Gonzaga Bridegroom decorated wall and his son

  • Descent into Limbo

  • The holy family with St. John

  • Martyrdom of St. James

  • The Martyrdom of St. Jacques

  • St. Jerome in the Wilderness

  • Vase with Orange

  • Madonna of the Cave

  • St. James on the Way to his Execution

  • Christ with the soul of the Virgin

  • Three deities

  • Polyptych of St. Luke

  • Christ of Pity supported by a cherub and a seraph

  • Madonna with St. John the Baptist, St. Gregory I the Great, and St. Benedict

  • The Martyrdom and transporting the body of Saint Christopher

  • Prayer in the Garden

  • St. Mark

  • San Sebastian

  • Samson and Delilah

  • Muse

  • St. Anthony of Padua and St. Bernardine of Siena presenting the monogram of Christ

  • Musicians and teaches Carriers

  • Dido

  • St. George

  • Death of the Virgin

  • Bacchanalia with a Wine

  • St. Euphemia

  • The Nativity

  • Judith with the Head of Holofernes

  • The Adoration of the Magi

  • St. Bernardine of Siena with the Angels

  • The Descent from the Cross

  • The Infant Redeemer

  • Virgin and Child (Madonna of Humility)

  • Holders of currencies and gold jewelry, trophies royal armor with pilasters

  • Trumpeters

  • Christ Carrying the Cross

  • The Combat of Love and Chastity

  • The Entombment

  • Trumpet players

  • The Family of Ludovico Gonzaga

  • The Virgin and Child with Saint Jerome and Louis of Toulouse

  • Madonna and Child with Seraphim and Cherubim

  • Virgin and Child with St. John the Baptist, St. Zachary and St. Elizabeth

  • Ecce Homo

  • The Flagellation of Christ in the pavement

  • Madonna and child

  • Portrait of Cardinal Lodovico Mezzarota

  • Trumpeters carrying flags and banners

  • Triumphs of Caeser

  • The resurrected Christ between St. Andrew and Longinus

  • Virgin and Child

  • Four Muses

  • The victory of virtue

  • The Circumcision of Christ

  • Scenes from the Life of St. James

  • Maria with the sleeping child

  • Prisonnniers

  • The Judgment of Solomon

  • The Baptism of Christ

  • Muse

  • A sibyl and a prophet

  • Julius Caesar on a triumphal car

  • Presentation at the Temple

  • Portrait of a Man

  • Adoration of the Shepherds

  • Portrait of Francesco Gonzaga

  • Judith and Holofernes

  • The Battle of Sea Gods

  • Portrait of Cardinal Carlo de' Medici

  • St. Sebastian

  • The Holy Family

  • Scenes from the Life of St. Christopher

  • The Holy Family with St. Elizabeth and St. John the Baptist

  • Judith

  • Saint Bernardine of Siena

  • Presentation of Christ in the temple

  • Minerva Chasing the Vices from the Garden of Virtue

  • Virgin and Child

  • Bird on a branch

  • The martyrdom of Saint Christopher

  • The Holy Family with Saint Mary Magdalen

  • Christ the Redeemer

  • The Descent into Hell

  • Portrait of a Man

  • The Resurrection

  • Bacchanal in Silene

  • Scenes from the Life of St. James

  • Triumph of Caesar

  • Mythological Scene, Metamorphoses of Amymone

  • Madonna and Child with Cherubs

  • The Senators

  • The Resurrection of Christ

• sculpture

  • Hercules resting after the fight with the Nemean lion

  • Self-Portrait

Views

Andrea Mantegna constantly referred to Donatello's sculpture, as can been seen through the hard, even metallic surfaces of his canvases. Only closer to the end of his life, in the 1490s, the approach was softened a little.

Mantegna's passion for linear perspective and antique art are also apparent in his works. He believed that linear perspective was a mean of creating a convincing illusion of space.

Membership

Andrea Mantegna was accepted to the Fraglia dei Pittori e Coffanari, the Paduan Artists' Guild, in 1445.

• The Paduan Artists' Guild , Italy

  1445

Personality

Andrea Mantegna was one of the first early Renaissance artists who supported friendly relations with many humanists, antiquarians, and university professors of his time, including close relations with his patron Ludovico Gonzaga. In such way, he contributed to the formation of the ideal of the artist as one so intimately familiar with antique history, mythology, and literature as to be able to draw easily from these highly respected sources.

A quite respected while alive, Mantegna was very proud of his accomplishments in the field of painting as seen through the signatures he made for his works. However, according to an art historian Giorgio Vasari, Mantegna, strongly jealous of his independence, was an abrasive person who had frequent disputes with others on various subjects. So, few surviving legal records of disputes with his neighbours are a kind of documental proofs of his irascible and contentious personality.

Interests

• classical antiquity

• Artists

  Jacopo Bellini, Donatello

Connections

Andrea Mantegna married Nicolosia Bellini, the daughter of the well known Venetian painter Jacopo Bellini, in 1453 . By joining such an influential artistic family of the time, Mantegna gained Giovanni Bellini and Gentile Bellini as his brothers-in-law and strengthened his Venetian connections.

Only two of Mantegna and Nicolosia children (three sons and a daughter), Lodovico and Francesco, survived into adulthood. Mantegna also had an illegitimate son, Giovanni Andrea, whom he acknowledged in old age, after the death of his spouse.

Father:

Biagio Mantegna

(born between 1366 and 1426)

Spouse:

Nicolosia Bellini

(born between 1445 and 1471)

Son:

Giovanni Andrea Mantegna

Son:

Francesco Mantegna

(born about 1470 – died 1517)

Francesco Mantegna followed his father's steps and became painter. He was active in Mantua where he took part in the decoration of the funeral chapel of his father in the Basilica of Sant'Andrea.

father-in-law:

Jacopo Bellini

(born about 1400 – died about 1470)

An Italian painter, Jacopo Bellini is considered one of the fathers of the Renaissance style of painting in Venice and northern Italy.

Son:

Lodovico Montegna

(born about 1460 – died 1510)

Lodovico (or Ludovico) Mantegna was an Italian painter. As his brother Francesco, he was active in Mantua, his hometown.

brother-in-law:

Giovanni Bellini

(born about 1430 - died 26 November 1516)

Bellini was a painter of the Italian Renaissance, considered to be the most famous member of the Bellini family of Venetian artists. He made a revolution in Venetian painting by bringing more sensuality and colors to it.

brother-in-law:

Gentile Bellini

(born about 1429 – died 23 February 1507)

Gentile Bellini was an Italian artist who represented the Venetian school of painting. The official portraitist for the Doges of Venice since 1474, he also painted for the Scuole Grandi of Venice, an influential confraternity in Venice at the time.

teacher:

Francesco Squarcione

(born about 1395 – died after 1468)

Francesco Squarcione was an Italian painter active in the early Renaissance. He is a father of the Paduan school.

pupil:

Marco Zoppo

(born 1433 – died 19 February 1498)

Zoppo was an Italian painter active in the Renaissance period. Working primarily in Bologna, he produced a series of variations of the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints.

References

• The Genius of Andrea Mantegna A book by Keith Christiansen.
  2010
• Andrea Mantegna: Making Art The book presents the art of Mantegna as challenging the parameters of the history of art in the demands it makes upon historical interpretation, and explores the artist's potentially transformative impact on the study of the early Renaissance.
  2016
• Andrea Mantegna A book by Suzanne Boorsch and Keith Christiansen.
  1993
• Andrea Mantegna A book on the painter, draughtsman and printmaker of the Italian Renaissance.
  1992
• Mantegna: The Life and Work of the Artist Illustrated with 80 Color Plates A book by Franca Zava Boccazzi.
  1971
• Andrea Mantegna: The Triumphs of Caesar A book by Christopher Lloyd.
  1991
• Andrea Mantegna: Padua and Mantua The book from the Great Fresco Cycles of the Renaissance series contains a comprehensive text, a biography of the artist, a bibliography, and a glossary.
  1994
• Andrea Mantegna and the Italian Renaissance A book by Joseph Manca.
  2006