Lecture 18: Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini
Few paintings of the Renaissance period convey as powerful a sensation of
a landscape À ooded with light as this one. Light penetrates the crevices of
rocks and reveals wildÀ owers and small animals, which St. Francis greets
with his arms spread in adoration of God’s nature. It is dawn, as in Christ
on the Mount of Olives. Light is life; the Earth is awakening. St. Francis of
Assisi is not presented here in the usual way, as the praying saint receiving the
stigmata; in this painting, he already has the wounds of Christ’s cruci¿ xion.
Bellini represents the St. Francis whose religious Humanism transformed the
Church in the 13th century. His fervent love of nature was his most beloved
characteristic, and his humility and simple life were admired. Contrast
Mantegna’s St. Sebastian and Bellini’s St. Francis, and the contribution of
Bellini’s innovations to subsequent Venetian art is clear. ŶGiovanni Bellini:
Christ on the Mount of Olives, c. 1465–70, tempera on panel, 32 x 50”
(81.3 x 127 cm), National Gallery, London, Great Britain.
St. Francis in Ecstasy, c. 1480–1485, tempera and oil on panel,
49 x 55 ¾” (124.4 x 141.9 cm), The Frick Collection, New York City,
New York, USA.
Andrea Mantegna:
Arrival of Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga, The Gonzaga Family, and
ceiling oculus, 1474, fresco, Camera degli Sposi, Palazzo Ducale,
Mantua, Italy.
Christ on the Mount of Olives (Agony in the Garden), c. 1460,
tempera on panel, 24 ¾ x 31 ½” (62.9 x 80 cm), National Gallery,
London, Great Britain.
St. Sebastian, c. 1460, tempera on panel, 26 ¾ x 11 ¾” (68 x 30 cm),
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.Works Discussed