Etiquette For Guests Paying Own Dinner

The Century of Mantegna at the Louvre


From vision (slightly) deforming an exhibition of an artist. The example of the retrospective Andrea Mantegna at the Louvre.

The Louvre is organizing a retrospective Mantegna. This term a little school, a little dry, mask what is really the cultural triumph of the autumn-winter in Paris. Present as complete a picture as possible of the work of a giant whose major works are to be so fragile that they do not travel much, either directly affixed to the walls of palaces which do not travel either.

The question is: was it possible? All the criticism seems permissible to think it does, and exposure actually accomplishes the feat promised, a few inevitable exceptions.

Indeed, as recalled by Giovanni Agosti in his beautiful book "story of Mantegna," the painter's art rests on two pillars: the ancient and illusion.

Antiquity is beautifully presented in the works exhibited in Paris. An antique marble, rough, manly, like figures made of statues, immersed in the gravity, grin a little harsh, a little frozen. They soften with time, not necessarily for the better elsewhere. But work on the illusion is much more difficult to feel, and sometimes we wonder if it has not simply been passed to the ace, then it is obviously an aspect capital. The confusion between real space and the space is painted a real problem Mategna's works, and is also specific to the whole of italy Ecle Northern Mannerism and the future. The Paris show has little railings that some trompe l'oeil marble or feigned to propose that it is understandable, but still short on comments on this aspect, what is cmprend less.

course, one must (should) run to see this exhibition, admire some masterpieces in the tryptic particuleir finally met the predella San Svevo, relations with pictorial Bellini (ah, the sweetness of Bellini!) with the Flemish school and Roger van der Weyden (ah realism oh the quaint, small rabbits players wild flowers at the feet of the martyrs), the fabled firm of Isabella d'Este and especially to see the evolution of a painter who for nearly a century has gone from being "the first painter in the world" to that of an old master always met, but exceeded by the fashion of the modern way.

The mild relief is soon preferred to the dignity of subjects and the sharpness of lines, colors spread into vapors rather than surfaces. Correggio, Leonardo da Vinci and Giorgione throw Mantegna's art style old-fashioned. All this creates a feeling of sweet melancholy after the profound admiration, and it is not the last tour de force of this exhibition to arouse feelings so intense and contrasting. As noted

admirably Philippe Dagen , the long series of prints that remind Mantegna was a contemporary of Dürer and Bosch. On the ceremonial allusions to antiquity, the intensity of passions and appetites are never far away. The monsters, the energies unleashed percent on the severity of initial contact. This force, this cruelty, soft morning Bellini and Van der Weydien picturesque building in the end of this magnificent course the image of a devilishly complex Mantegna, whom we admire illusionism situ In the rooms of the spouses of Mantua.

Mantegna, Musée du Louvre, until early January. V oir the mini-site exposure