Dead Christ

I decided to analyze the painting “The Lamentation of Christ “or, “Dead Christ” by Andea Mantegna for a few special reasons. It is a very abrupt and emotional piece at first glance but is very reflective and dense at the same time. The perception Mantegna used for the painting was very confronting and period. The colors used are dull but realistic and not straying too far from monochromatic witch I have been finding a lot in the dull and dark renaissance paintings I have been enjoying. I like this painting for its overall layout and composition the most, but all the small subtleties, the emotional expressions, the linear perspective used to show all of Christ’s body. It all comes together and delivers an epic and very unique piece, especially for the time period.

            The way that Christ is set up in the painting is not entirely realistic which is odd for that time where the more precise in scale and form your painting was the more style you seemed to have. After discovering my own focal point of the painting being Christ’s stomach and chest I moved toward the wounds on his hands and finally his feet. Something wasn’t right about his feet, they were too small for the perspective to fit. After, I read about how Mantegna did not want his feet to overpower the rest of the painting so he decided to keep them smaller. These are the little choices that I believe make paintings unique especially when they are decided in a time where they have yet to be judged. Every small choice used today in art can be traced back to, at one point being an invention. The Renaissance was a time of the most artistic inventors.

            The colors used in this painting are very natural and warm colors. They show a lot of emotion in them and are used well to bring out that emotion especially in the reds and violets of the faces.  The lines in the piece really pull the viewer in the main subject of Christ. Every other subject has very subtle lines and trapped in between horizontal and vertical. But the lines surrounding Christ are crisp and straight and box him and the viewer’s eyes, in at him.

            The detail and attention to the light and shadows of the environment are very period for this painting. Even with the dull warm colors are bent and bruised to shadows without giving up detail in return.  I would not be surprised to learn that this paintings placement was decided and taken into account before it was even started. My eye traveled around this painting following the light and digging itself out of shadows finally and inevitable ended on Christ’s face. While this seems like it might be the first thing the viewer would look at, for me every little subtlety of line color and light, led me to rest my eyes on Christ’s face.  After collecting all the emotion and passion from everything around him the painting ends for me on a dead, motionless body of Christ.