Andrea Mantegna, Dead Christ (1480)

tempera on canvas, 68x81 cm
Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera

The very famous Dead Christ by Andrea Mantegna, conserved in the Pinacoteca di Brera, is in this virtual exhibition because our intention is to make a comparison with the Nude in foreshortening by Guidi, because the position of the bodies is the same.
But event though the position is the same, there is a big difference in the realization. Mantegna chooses to go against the rules of perspective (which are instead respected by Guidi) "crushing" the body of Christ, so the observer can pay attention to the face of Jesus and not to the feet and to the thighs. If Mantegna choosed to make a realistic intepretation of the body of Christ, he would have represented it as the Nude in foreshortening by Guidi. Then, Mantegna inserts a pillow to make Jesus' head more evident.
The realization of Mantegna is very daring: besides of his typical sign which is very sharp (we can notice the body and the folds of the clothes), derived from the analysis of German paintings, he chooses to represent the body as nobody never did before.

A project by
Federico Giannini

Museo Ugo Guidi
(Forte dei Marmi)

Associazione Amici
del Museo Ugo Guidi
Onlus


Humanities
Computing

University of Pisa