Seminal masterpieces by Mantegna to inspire the display of the new Accademia’s space in Venice

 

After visiting the new 3500 squared meters bakery-style space of the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice – that to us looked poor and ingenuous if compared to the refined interiors designed by Tatado Ando for Punta della Dogana – we had the impression of someone who waiting for a trial, which could either condemn him or, on the contrary, set him free and happy. This is why we would like to focus today on a masterpiece preserved in the museum, the “St. George” by Andrea Mantegna. In this work, what we find interesting from a conceptual point of view is indeed the representation of the space and its relationship between reality and appearance.

 

The painting depicts the dragon, now defeated and dead, grounded at the foot of the saint. The scene is enclosed within a painted frame (marble-like) and the landscape in the background is characterized by a realistic perspective. While the saint looks like he is posing for souvenir photos, similar to those of the hunters close to their prey, the dragon seems to come out from this frame, as to invade, with its muzzle, the space of the viewer.

 

This artwork easily recalls the words that the great historian Eewin Panofsky wrote in his book “Perspective as symbolic form.” According to him, the concept of perspective prevents religious art to enter the field of magic, dogmatic and symbolic (as it was in the Middle Ages). It also opens the way to a completely new region: the one of the visionary that is where the supernatural events (linked to the deeds of the saints) penetrate into the natural space (which is part of the viewer).
Who looks at the work, therefore, is induced to identify the supernatural world of the saints with the reality of the viewer.

 

In Panofsky’s opinion, the transition from psychophysiological space to mathematical space is realised with the Renaissance perspective. During this time, as a matter of fact, artists were very aware of the relationship between the representation of perspective and the point of view of the spectator. An example amongst many is that of Leonardo Da Vinci who, in his treatise on painting, advises to fix the point of view at the height of a man of an average height.

 

Nowadays, however, it happens that these sophisticated Renaissance theories and the efforts made by the artists to put in relations the space of the painting with that of the viewer are often disregarded, even in great museums, when it comes to the setting of artworks. A good instance that helps to clarify the above thesis is indeed another painting by Mantegna, “Dead Christ”, possibly his most famous one. The artwork, preserved in the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, has been entirely betrayed in his perspective setting.

 

The work is famous for the dramatic foreshortened angle of the figure of Christ lying, who has the particularity of following the viewer. Yet, since few months ago, the painting has been hanging at 65 cm from the ground, thus breaking the spell of the “infinite space” between art and reality. As a consequence the spectator, who wants to look at it closely, is almost forced to kneel down.

 

As an influential Italian archaeologist and art expert commented, “The paintings are arranged above the low furniture, so that you can see them, both seated and standing. To have, instead, a framework 67 inches above the ground, as now in the Brera, to get an illusionistic effect, and that in a museum where you are standing, it means that you have the body of Jesus at the height of the male private parts, which all have except the eyes”.

July 18, 2015