Andrea Mantegna's Painting 'The Man Of Sorrow'

Dying Lord
This semester I focused my research on Andrea Mantegna’s painting The Man of Sorrows with the Two Angels and his ability in portraying the meditative importance of the slain Christ. (Next Slide)
The history of painting the Lord, slain from crucifixion had been a very popular and well exercised practice for many centuries. The iconography of His crucifixion has been dated back as early as the fourth century. But not until about the thirteenth century did we start seeing Christ being portrayed as the agonized, sorrowful, gaunt figure that we categorize as the ‘Man of Sorrow.’ The works that emerged to depict Christ as the Man of Sorrow show Christ in his final moments after His crucifixion. The image of Christ as the Man of Sorrow
He illustrated the great sacrifice in which Jesus encountered to show his love and promise to all that believe in him for heavenly salvation. Devotional pieces are works created to represent either the beginning or the ending of Christ’s life and his time on earth. Yet, overall the main focus of the Christian devotional instillations were the portrayal of the last moments of Christ on the cross or soon thereafter and to entice and inspire the viewer to contemplate and have empathetic involvement with the scene depicted. By including Christ in front of a vague and equivocal background it enhances the sense of intimacy the viewer feels with the work and his
His inspiration for this work came from Donatello’s bronze relief for the Santo in Padua showing a half-length figure of Christ propped up within a sarcophagus and flanked by two youthful angels. Unlike many paintings of the same narrative, this work uniquely shows Christ’s body in full length with his head bent specifically to one side, his cross bearing hands extended out toward the viewer to show his time on the cross, and an expression of suffering on Christ’s face that signifies a great agony. He is seated upon an “all’antia sarcophagus which kneel two angels, one with the red wings and robes of a seraph, the other in the blue of a cherub, supporting his body. To the right of Christ is a view of the lush green pastures which holds the path that two Holy Women journey on toward the tomb on Easter morning; to the left of Christ is shows the pebbly plateau that has the lid of His sarcophagus; and just behind, in the distance of the painting you can see the walled city of Jerusalem, a series of mountain tops, and a cave. This is incredibly unique to include a landscape of his crucifixion and burial in this type of painting. Overall, this painting is delicately bisected to allow the viewer to see the moment between crucifixion and the Resurrection; “To Christ’s left, Golgotha with its crosses is seen in the light of the setting sun; to his right the