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Andrea MANTEGNA (Isola di Cartura, 1431−Mantua, 1506)
Saint Sebastian
c. 1480
© Musée du Louvre/A. Dequier - M. Bard |
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Denon
1st Floor
Grande Galerie. Painting in Tuscany and northern Italy, 15th?16th century
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St. Sebastian |
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The martyrdom of St. Sebastian, the legendary saint invoked against the plague, was frequently depicted in the fifteenth century. The Gonzaga family, for whom the artist worked for forty years, commissioned the Louvre painting from Mantegna.
Mantegna trained in Padua, home of a university that specialized in the study of antiquity and a basilica, the Santo, dedicated to St. Anthony, which attracted the greatest sculptors of the day, including Donatello. The sculptural handling of the body, the use of a system of proportions and slight contrapposto recall Greek statuary of the classical period. The idealized beauty of the body of a man who had faith in God contrasts with the particularly ugly faces of his torturers, seen in the lower right-hand corner, as if cropped by the frame.
St. Sebastian is tied to a carefully depicted fluted column with a composite capital. The city that appears in the distance is comprised of ancient buildings set against a metaphorical landscape. Pierced by arrows, the saint has replaced the broken idol, of which only a foot remains. Growing near the base of the statue is a fig tree, a symbol of the Church according to St. Gregory.
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Walk back to Rooms 1 and 2.
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