Main content
Europe 1300 - 1800
Course: Europe 1300 - 1800 > Unit 3
Lesson 4: Northern Italy: Venice, Ferrara, and the Marches- Venetian art, an introduction
- Oil paint in Venice
- Devotional confraternities (scuole) in Renaissance Venice
- Palazzo Ducale
- Ca' d'Oro
- Aldo Manuzio (Aldus Manutius): inventor of the modern book
- Saving Venice
- Gentile Bellini, Portrait of Sultan Mehmed II
- Gentile Bellini and Giovanni Bellini, Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria
- Giovanni Bellini, St. Francis
- Giovanni Bellini, Brera Pietà
- Giovanni Bellini, San Giobbe Altarpiece
- Giovanni Bellini, San Zaccaria Altarpiece
- Giovanni Bellini, San Zaccaria Altarpiece
- Giovanni Bellini and Titian, The Feast of the Gods
- Andrea Mantegna, San Zeno Altarpiece
- Mantegna, Saint Sebastian
- Mantegna, Dormition of the Virgin
- Mantegna, Camera degli Sposi
- Mantegna, Dead Christ
- Pisanello, Leonello d’Este
- Sala dei Mesi at Palazzo Schifanoia
- Vittore Carpaccio, Miracle of the Relic of the Cross at the Rialto Bridge
- Persian carpets, a peacock, and a cucumber, understanding Crivelli's Annunciation
- Carlo Crivelli, The Annunciation with Saint Emidius
- Do you speak Renaissance? Carlo Crivelli, Madonna and Child
- Cosmè Tura, Roverella Altarpiece
- Guido Mazzoni, Lamentation in Ferrara
- Guido Mazzoni and Renaissance Emotions
- Guido Mazzoni, Head of a Man
- Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara
- Renaissance Venice in the 1400s
© 2023 Khan AcademyTerms of usePrivacy PolicyCookie Notice
Mantegna, Dead Christ
Andrea Mantegna, Lamentation over the Dead Christ, c. 1483, tempera on canvas, 68 x 81 cm (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan)
A conversation between Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker. Created by Smarthistory.
A conversation between Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker. Created by Smarthistory.
Want to join the conversation?
- Did Mantegna purposely overly foreshorten the legs? It makes the painting look a bit freakish.(14 votes)
- At, they mention how the commentators believe that the legs were shortened in a disproportionate manner in order to lead the eye toward Christ's face. I agree, though. The proportions are quite freakish, especially considering the lower legs appear so much longer than the upper legs, especially in regards to the chest, which seems not foreshortened enough. 2:40(15 votes)
- Can someone please explain foreshortening? Thanks!(4 votes)
- It is an illusion of 3-dimension on the 2-dimensional canvas. For example, if you look at Christ in this painting you see that his body is shortened to give the illusion of him lying down with our eye looking at him from the bottom of his feet upward towards his head. It gives a sense of depth in an otherwise flat painting.
I find it difficult to explain without visual cues but I hope this helps.(10 votes)
- It is interesting to note that the museum has hung the painting so that Christ head is at the same level as our's. Is this frequently done?(3 votes)
- I visited the Pinacoteca in October, 2015 and they changed that. At the end of a well lit corridor we entered a darker room where the painting was hung just below waist level giving the impression of entering the room where the scene was happening and giving us the matching point of view of the body. Astonishing.(5 votes)
- Were those two people on the left supposed to be anyone specific?(1 vote)
- In the bible, Mary Magdalene and Jesus' mother Mary were present at his crucifixion and his burial so the women in the painting may be a depiction of them.(7 votes)
- I've seen some pictures of this painting that look more colorful. Are these after conservation? What does the painting look like now?(3 votes)
- This is the real color of the painting. In a lot of photos, they discolor it(2 votes)
- What era was the lamentation of the dead christ?
yes, Andrea Mantegna was a renaissance artist, but does this painting considered as baroque? ASAP thanks.(1 vote)- It is still during the Renaissance. The Baroque period started in the 1600s and they focused more on exaggeration of movement and exhibited grandeur in their work.(1 vote)
- What's the space an depth of Mantegna Dead Christ? Thanks(1 vote)
- The dimensions of the painting are given at the en of the video. Is that what you are asking for?(1 vote)
- every painting of mary and john are different. are we sure these to people are mary and john(1 vote)
- They were the figures present during his crucifixion and after, so it is most likely them. His mother is always shown weeping after his death.(1 vote)
- why are there nobody?(1 vote)
Video transcript
(playful music) - [Steven] We're in the
Brera Pinacoteca in Milan, looking at one of their
most famous paintings. This is Andrea Mantegna's "Dead Christ", one of the most vivid and emotionally impactful
paintings in this museum. - [Beth] We are standing at his feet, looking across his body. There's almost no space around
the slab that he's lying on - [Steven] Now, Mantegna
is known for experimenting with radical perspectives
and foreshortening and this is a tour de force. Those feet, those toes
are within our reach. - [Beth] We're seeing Christ,
it seems lying on the Stone of Unction, the stone that
his body was laid down upon in order that it could be
anointed by Mary Magdalene and others before it
was put into the tomb. One of the figures that we see on the left is likely Mary Magdalene. We see her typical attribute of a jar of ointment
that she would've used to anoint Christ's body
on the right corner. - [Steven] This painting is all about the physicality of Christ. And our eyes rise up the cloth that covers his body delineated by light and shadow until
we get to the torso. And then we continue over the
convex shape of his chest. And as our eye moves even further into the deep space of
this painting, and we look onto that face that suffered
so much, but now seems at peace, we finally see a
reference to Christ's divinity. We see that halo. - [Beth] It's very likely
that Mantegna used a cadaver as a model when he painted this. There is a sense of physical death here which reminds us that God
became a man to give his life for the sins of mankind. And we're reminded so
vividly of that suffering. We can see wounds in his hands,
in his feet, and his chest. His hands even seem propped
up to show us those wounds. - [Steven] Look at the way in which Mantegna has painted those wounds. They're not just bloodied
holes, they are wounds that have dried over time. There's a kind of physicality
that we can recognize. - [Beth] When we normally
see images of Christ before the tomb, in images of
the entombment, for example or the lamentation, we often see his body
horizontally laid out, and we often see it held
upright before the tomb or rising out of the tomb. And so this is very different. - [Steven] The proximity that is achieved by this composition is meant to intensify its emotional impact. It's meant to invite us to mourn. The figures to the left
are in a sense providing us with a model for that mourning. We are to take on their sorrow. - [Beth] This was painted a few decades before Mantegna's death but it remained in his possession until he died. So there is wide agreement among scholars that this painting had
personal significance for him. There's no record of a commission and so perhaps it's something
that he painted for himself. - [Steven] In fact, one
art historian has suggested that this may have been painted in response to the death
of two of his sons. - [Beth] Well, increasingly
in the Renaissance, we are more and more invited
to put ourselves in the place of biblical figures of Christ,
of Mary, of the Saints, to meditate upon their suffering
in a very detailed way. And so this is a contemplative image. - [Steven] And it's
important to remember that because some have spent a good deal of time dissecting the
perceived inaccuracies of the composition. You'll notice that Christ's feet are small in relationship to the size of his head. And I think the objective
here was not visual accuracy, it was emotive accuracy. And the power of this
painting has been felt by artists for centuries. It has had a tremendous
impact on subsequent work. - [Beth] There are so many
images of Christ foreshortened that come after this that
are so clearly influenced by Mantegna, but only
one or two before this that show a figure that's
even remotely close to the kind of foreshortening
that Mantegna gives us here. And I wonder how Mantegna felt looking at this image, painting this,
thinking about this promise of an eternal life through
Christ's suffering. - [Steven] There's no relief for the intensity of this vision. (playful music)