Inside the Mantegna magnificent
exhibition of Louvre Museum, do not miss the small print from the
National Gallery of Art in Washington. Among the holy martyrs, the gods
of virtue and heroic triumphs, it is of simplicity and truth daunting.
This is a Virgin known as "humility", composed around 1490 with the art
of chisel and blade of steel on copper as the master of Mantua may be
invented. Madonna, without any embroidery or jewelry, is sitting on the
floor and not on his throne of glory. The greenhouse in its bosom
worried her child. The brooding plays against plays as if she did not
want to abandon it to its fate. And if history would repeat itself,
seems to say Mantegna ... These two people seem so close to us that was
added halo around their heads for the subsequent tests, so that we
understand that it is the Virgin and Christ. We see that we're here in
the heart of the Renaissance, when humanism is required. The Virgin
becomes wife, a baby Jesus. The quattrocento bouil column at the
University of Padua, factory think of Venice. That some time that
Petrarch sent Averroes in the darkness what does not yet called the
Middle Ages. And in his suite, scientists and enlightened princes now
get their lights directly to Greco-Roman sources. Aesthetically, the
Gothic and died soon triumph of the so-called modern way, that of
Raphael, Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci, "says Dominique Thiebaut,
the cocommissaire of exposure, with Giovanni Agosti, of University of
Milan. Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506), the first king of the Renaissance,
more funds for gold, up to atmospheric skies, the background rigorous
ever deeper, with peasants and workers indifferent to what happens
before, for a large painting that emerges. "It pictore primo del mondo"
( "the greatest painter the world"), as the Cardinal d'Amboise, then
triumph with its sacred scenes filled - for the first time - ruins,
columns, sculptures, the entire repertoire of 'Antiquity
mythifiée. It surprised not only by this scholarly but also
audaces formal miles. Dizzying effects of perspective, striking trompe
l'oeil, viewpoints novel (if you can not move frescoes ducal palace of
Mantua and its famous ceiling of the House of spouses, break
illusionist to the heavens, it regrets the absence of Christ death of
the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, incredible shortcut, considered too
fragile to be moved). The work of Mantegna placed in context,
since alongside other contemporary artists, the Louvre proves that the
son of obscure carpenter was well, since its 16 years on the cutting
edge of research initiated by Paolo Uccello, Andrea del Castagno,
Filippo Lippi and especially by the sculptor Donatello. Simultaneously,
we take the measure of the Flemish influence in Italy this avant-garde.
It reads in the expressive faces and the extreme delicacy of the bill,
which allows the artist to imitate nature down to the tiny gravel. This
shakes detail, both in workshops in the Italian palace. Starting with
the Duke of Mantua Ludovic Gonzague which reserves the slightest leaf
falling from the hands of the master. And even beyond the Alps where
the future Francis I is seeking a work at any price. But if the author
of the famous Louvre Saint Sebastian (the glass and frame were removed
for the occasion) subjugated in its time and subjugate always - from
Rubens to Giacometti through Poussin, Degas or Proust, the list of
admirers is not close - is above all by this freedom and inventiveness
that are the hallmark of great poets. For Mantegna meditates
constantly, leaving his works everywhere in the footsteps of his
thoughts and musings. Life abounds in these cities and its countryside
represented on the horizon with the attention of the illuminator in a
crystalline air still, still light years sfumato of Leonardo. "We look
on without tiring representations of the background, more appealing
than the parade of great figures at the forefront," says Giovanni
Agosti in his penetrating essay Story of Mantegna (see box). Dives
therefore with delight in these miniature universe, the most
incongruous curious add appendices to the main speeches, parasites
sometimes comical morality until, just as the Italian cinema of the
1950s. Scamp is curant the teeth of a finger after a sand chewed, while
at his side the Child Jesus has been circumcised. Strange
anthropomorphic figures pointing in the generous clouds of heaven.
Pretty pearls on the chest of Pegasus. Sautillants rabbits and bees
buzzing, to be unconscious at the time of Prayer in the Garden of
Olives. Nearby, also in the predella of the San Zeno altarpiece held
exceptionally in the central composition, that of the Crucifixion, we
see that the sandal (ressemelée) of Legionnaire playing dice
is painted with the same concern for accuracy that the net flowing
blood on the Cross. Was this helpful? Renaissance here reveals the
existence of a profane world that has its own life, modest, independent
of the sacred ideal. This fantasy underlying explodes in
place prodigious prints hallucinations bacchanals and fighting sea
monsters. Albrecht Dürer is now far the baroque either.
