Сретение {3171}
Presentation of Christ at the temple
- автор:
- Мантенья А.
- Andrea Mantegna
- место:
- Берлин: Гос. музеи
- Berlin: Staatliche Museen
- композиция:
- Справа показан автопортрет художника.
- The picture shows the presumed self-portrait of the artist.
- The painting have a structure as a work by Giovanni Bellini {2820}: in the foreground, leaning against a marble ledge, the Virgin is holding the swaddled Child while the old priest stretches out to take it.
- In {2820} there are two more figures, identified by critics as the mother Anna and Giovanni himself.
- The invention was probably Mantegna's, as can be assumed from the inflexibly austere framing of the scene, the Child of Donatellian inspiration which placed on the ledge becomes a unit of measure for the scene's spatial depth,
and even the physical features of the priest, resembling Squarcione's prototypes which had been familiar to Mantegna.
- Изображение замкнуто прямоугольной рамой, неумолимой преградой, отдаляющей от зрителя изображённые персонажи.
Они обрисованы с графической чёткостью, подчёркивающей самоценность каждой фигуры, так что их бытие воспринимается как вечное, приобретает абсолютный характер.
- Mantegna's Presentation is enclosed ineluctably within a square frame, a fatal screen separating the group from the spectator; the figures are absorbed in an incisiveness that renders them detached and eternal in an absolute vision.
- In contrast with its architectural solidity and marmoreal rigour, Bellini's scene has a quite different rhythm,
with modifications that are apparently insignificant but in reality substantial: the addition of two characters gives the group more life, splits it up and reassembles it into a small human crowd.
- The elimination of the frame, or rather its reduction to a pale, marbled shelf, somewhat akin to a church altar-top, suddenly removes every barrier and draws one toward the scene with a sense of intimacy.
- To the solid as rock colours of Mantegna, who blends flesh-tones, stones and drapery, he responds with a pure and orchestrated play of whites and reds in clear alternation.
- The views of critics about when the two works were painted do not concur,
but it seems impossible to imagine that a long period of time separated their respective execution, as had been initially suggested, also by virtue of the diverse opinions regarding the precedence of the conception.
- It would be illuminating perhaps to discover the reasons that led to their execution, which do not appear to be a matter of chance, but almost certainly linked to family events, which with this important family portrait were solemnized.
- оформление:
- ~1460.
- Tempera on wood.
- 860х670.
- предмет с изображением:
