Synopses & Reviews
Mantegna's magnificent painting, in the Getty collection, is based on one of Christianity's most beloved stories. The picture is much more than a Christmas-card image though. Dawson Carr explores Mantegna's life and milieu in fifteenth-century Padua and provides a fascinating closer look at the painting itself, considering Mantegna's innovative treatment of the subject, the relationship of the narrative to the viewer, and problems associated with the conservation of its beautiful, but fragile, distemper medium.
Synopsis
This series introduces individual works or small groups of closely related works in the Museum's collections to a broad public. Each monograph includes a close discussion of its subject as well as a detailed analysis of the broader context in which the work was created, considering relevant historical, cultural, and chronological issues.
Explores Mantegna's life and milieu in fifteenth-century Padua, the influence on the artist's career of the revolutionary theoretical ideas of his time, comparable works by Mantegna as well as other artists, and the significance of the subject matter in Christian theology.