Andrea Mantegna · c. 1480
The Lamentation over the Dead Christ
Andrea Mantegna
The Lamentation over the Dead Christ
c. 1480
Painted by Andrea Mantegna around 1480, 'The Lamentation over the Dead Christ' reorients the viewer to stand at Christ's feet, compressing the entire body into the picture-plane in one of the most audacious acts of foreshortening in Western art. The pierced hands and feet loom into the foreground while the head recedes into sorrow; at the left, Mary, John, and another mourner grieve in the edge of the frame. Unsold during Mantegna's lifetime and kept by his sons, the painting entered the Brera at the end of the 18th century and stands as a philosophical meditation on death, anatomy, and the power of perspective.
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Image source: Wikimedia Commons