From Carpenter to Count: the Rise and Rise of Andrea Mantegna
Monday 2nd June 2014: Lecturer Jo Walton
Summary
This lecture looks at the art of Mantegna, a stern and taciturn man with a passion for antiquity, who created some of the most beautiful images of the Renaissance.
Synopsis
Andrea Mantegna was a remarkable artist; a brilliant painter and draughtsman, pioneering printmaker, portrait painter of rare acuity and devotee of all things classical. He was also quite capable of hiring thugs to beat up his enemies and taking anybody who annoyed him to court.He is one of the most compelling artists of the Italian Renaissance, developing new ideas about storytelling and perspective and bridging the gap between the linear style of Florence and the painterly colourism of Venice.
His scholarly recreations of Roman antiquity and his growing status as court painter to the Gonzaga Dukes of Mantua resulted in the gift of a palatial house by his patron and to his ennoblement as a