Dying Lord This semester I focused my research on Andrea Mantegna’s painting The Man of Sorrows with the Two Angels and his ability in portraying the meditative importance of the slain Christ. (Next Slide) The history of painting the Lord, slain from crucifixion had been a very popular and well exercised practice for many centuries. The iconography of His crucifixion has been dated back as early as the fourth century. But not until about the thirteenth century did we start seeing Christ being portrayed as the agonized, sorrowful, gaunt figure that we categorize as the ‘Man of Sorrow.
The works that emerged to depict Christ as the Man of Sorrow show Christ in his final moments after His crucifixion. The image of Christ as the Man of Sorrow is to be taken as a devotional of His crucifixion, yet with how each artist illustrates His final moment, each interpretation is almost a standalone portrait of Christ. (Next Slide) The inspiration to bestow the name The ‘Man of Sorrows’ onto Christ came from the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament which reads, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. ” (Next Slide) Andrea Mantegna painted the fifteenth century Northern Italian Renaissance devotional depicting Christ nearing the end of his earthly life, after his crucifixion, in The Man of Sorrows with the Two Angels. He illustrated the great sacrifice in which Jesus encountered to show his love and promise to all that believe in him for heavenly salvation. Devotional pieces are works created to represent either the beginning or the ending of Christ’s life and his time on earth. Yet, overall the main focus of the
Christian devotional instillations were the portrayal of the last moments of Christ on the cross or soon thereafter and to entice and inspire the viewer to contemplate and have empathetic involvement with the scene depicted. By including Christ in front of a vague and equivocal background it enhances the sense of intimacy the viewer feels with the work and his God. Before understanding Mantegna’s work, and why he chose to portray Christ after his Crucifixion as he did, it is wise to better grasp the understanding of religious empowerment of the individual of the time in which Mantegna conducted his great devotional piece.
Many studies conducted upon the late medieval era conclude that interiority played an integral role in how one define themselves; and this also holds true in how they dictate their relationship to their religion and God. It is believed that around the beginning of the 15th century, the idea of interiority formed out of the reconstructing of society and how it is governed, and the ability to worship and profess religious individualities.
Since the Church did not have the commanding power it once had on the individual to dictate how they would worship, the people of the Faith would learn that their own personal commitment to their God would come from within. Oratio, lectio, and meditatio or personal prayer, reading, and reliance on meditation with the word of God became much more important and were the most powerful ways of devotion. The primary focus of Christian religious arts during the Middle Ages was dictated by the Church and how they wanted Christ to be understood and worshiped.
They only wanted Jesus to be depicted in a divine aspect, as the all mighty creator and ruler of the universe who would come in glory at the end of time to judge the living and the dead. With the disconnect to God that the Church promoted in the arts of Middle ages, it kept the viewer and worshiper to be distant with their lord, and forced them only learn what the Church wanted them to learn, which was obedience and memorization. Having a personal relationship with their God was essentially unheard of for the ommon man since the only way to talk to God was through the priests, nuns, and monks of the Church in exchange for alms. Not until the turn of the thirteenth century did the lack of connection and person involvement, in which the common man had with their Lord, began to improve. (Next Slide) The biggest attributing factor in the changing of tides toward having a personal relationship with God was the efforts made by Francis of Assisi. He was the faith’s most important and influential advocate for change.
In his sermons he promoted the teaching of the word of the gospel in the vernacular of the time so that many would be able to hear the word and take from it their own personal opinions and salvations. He also promoted public forms of worship so that many would hear the word of God directly without the persecution from the Church for having a personal connection with their God. But most importantly, he taught and inspired the laity how to meditate and pray. As the idea of having a personal relationship with God became more accepted and understood, art began to reflect this.
Works of art of all kinds were being created to fulfill the increasing demand for aids to individual meditation on the mysteries of the faith. The new found understanding and lay empowerment, in which inner religious devotion brings, brought forth the individual to be independent and anti-hierarchical and free. (Next Slide) As Brian Cummings denotes, he sees that the rebirth of the religion though the eyes of its followers as a “new theology,” “since power in the religious community accordingly shifted downward with the aid of vernacular book production and the individual interpretation it invites.
Without the control of the information of the religion and how to dictate how it should be interpreted, the dependence on the Church changed dramatically, which in turn, changed its power and influence. (Next Slide) With this change of power, Eamon Duffy “sees in the influence in the individual as ‘democratization’ because it transferred Gospel meditations into the domain of both lay and learned, both individual and official spirituality” (Next Slide) The reliance of
Oratio, lectio, and meditatio or personal prayer, reading, and reliance on meditation are incredibly important for one to truly attain a relationship with God, but it’s also incredibly important since as Nicholas Watson puts it bluntly, “it proclaims an ambitious spiritual attitude [in the individual] which belongs less to the ecclesiastical institution than to the desert, the inner space where the soul sits in solitude. ” (Next Slide) Andrea Mantegna’s The Man of Sorrows with the Two Angels is a depiction of Christ in his final moments after His crucifixion.
His inspiration for this work came from Donatello’s bronze relief for the Santo in Padua showing a half-length figure of Christ propped up within a sarcophagus and flanked by two youthful angels. Unlike many paintings of the same narrative, this work uniquely shows Christ’s body in full length with his head bent specifically to one side, his cross bearing hands extended out toward the viewer to show his time on the cross, and an expression of suffering on Christ’s face that signifies a great agony.
He is seated upon an “all’antia sarcophagus which kneel two angels, one with the red wings and robes of a seraph, the other in the blue of a cherub, supporting his body. To the right of Christ is a view of the lush green pastures which holds the path that two Holy Women journey on toward the tomb on Easter morning; to the left of Christ is shows the pebbly plateau that has the lid of His sarcophagus; and just behind, in the distance of the painting you can see the walled city of Jerusalem, a series of mountain tops, and a cave. This is incredibly unique to include a landscape of his crucifixion and burial in this type of painting.
Overall, this painting is delicately bisected to allow the viewer to see the moment between crucifixion and the Resurrection; “To Christ’s left, Golgotha with its crosses is seen in the light of the setting sun; to his right the landscape lightens to evoke dawn alluding to the coming Resurrection. (Next Slide) In similar fashion to Andrea Mantegna’s depiction of Christ, Giovanni Bellini’s Dead Christ Supported by the Madonna and St John illustrates Christ in his final moments after His crucifixion. Yet, unlike Mantegna’s work, Giovanni Bellini’s Dead Christ… as one of his more celebrated works that gained him much notoriety. The work consists of Christ in the middle, and of two individuals who were dear to Him and his disciples; his mother Mary on the left and John the Evangelist on the right. The work is mostly taken up by the three who are included, with Christ being in the middle with his downward falling arm extending forward onto the foreground, Christ’s mother Mary on the left exuding much sorrow with her gaze upon her slain son face, and his disciple John turning away from his Lord to restrict his showing of his own sorrow and grief.
Again, unlike Mantegna’s depiction of Christ, Giovanni Bellini’s portrayal of Christ was painted as a standing half figure in a sarcophagus. As per usual, Giovanni Bellini used his great skill to masterfully create and show his figures in front of a landscape background and under tremendous natural light which gives the illusion of dusk, and of relief like three dimensionality. Right below Christ’s downfallen left hand in the center of the work, lays a Latin inscription.
An inscription that’s been translated to read: “Since these swollen eyes consistently elicit lamentations from [the beholder], this work by Bellini Giovanni had [and still has] the power to weep [itself]. ” “The inscription demonstrates the mode of interaction that was established above with reference to the devotional image. ” When breaking down these two works that glorify Christ’s last moments before His death from crucifixion, there have many similarities that have come across that bind these works together.
Yet, ultimately the works are truly different in their overall portrayal of Christ and his death. The biggest difference being that Giovanni Bellini’s adaption showed Christ right after he has died, and the sorrow in which the others, he had included, are having because of the passing of their son and or savior; whereas Andrea Mantegna’s adaption of Christ showed his resurrection and almost assent into heaven with his angels who are kneeling behind him.
