Lamentation of Christ (Mantegna)

The Lamentation of Christ, in the literature Cristo in Scorto, is a painting by Andrea Mantegna. It originated in the second half of the 15th century and is due to the extreme foreshortening of the representation of Christ's body as his " most unusual " work.

Subject and period of construction

The design of the removed from the cross and wept for Christ comes only indirectly the Bible ( cf. Lk 23, 49 ). For the most part it goes back to representations in apocryphal writings and their reception by later works. When Mantegna created the painting, is not known. As a conceivable period, the years are called between about 1457 to after 1500. Most of the literature assumes that the work was written in 1480. The picture is one of five paintings that were found at the death of the master and no commissions were. , Mantegna painted the picture well for his own grave chapel in the church of Sant'Andrea in Mantua.

It is certain that he has taken up the impressions created by Andrea del Castagno Trinitätsfresko in the church of Santa Annunziata in Florence. In this work, Christ is shown hanging on the cross still in strong reduction from the head.

Representation

Shown is removed from the cross of Christ. He is lying on a red-veined marble bench, the lower half of the body is covered by a smeared by blood and tears cloth. The three mourning figures on the left side of the stretcher are ( from the front) of the apostle John, Maria with a cloth and, half hidden by this, probably Mary Magdalene.

Unusual is the perspective of the viewer on the body. The chosen representation of the viewer moves directly approach the stone on which the bier is. The highly realistic image of the crucified shows that Mantegna had accurate knowledge of anatomy and also dominated the perspective view. The vertical shortening of the body, in the Renaissance, the term in Scurto or known in Scorto, causes the viewer's gaze first the wounds of the foot and the hands, then the injury in the page and then sees the face of Christ. All details are set forth in " unsparing detail ", such as the face still marked by the death struggle. Realistic and naturalistic, the figures of the mourners are shown, in particular, the trains of Mary and John.

Stefano Zuffi noticed about this picture: " Mantegna to the limits driven abruptness of figure drawing makes again no concessions to the soft gradations of color as they come up in the Venetian painting at the end of the 15th century. On the threshold of a new century Mantegna [ ... ] formulated an anachronistic, but clear commitment to a painting that is based on strict contours and sharp line drawing ".

Theological hints

More recent research deals with two objects that are represented in the painting: the ointment jar, which is shown to the right of Christ's head, and the marble stretcher on which lies the Crucified; is the Salbstein Christ himself Authentic theme of the work would be followed by the Jewish anointing, the holy object is not the body but the important relic of the stone, which, at the fall of Constantinople in 1453, just a few years before the creation of the painting was lost. Thus, the image can certainly be seen as a call for a crusade.