Beweinung Christi

Mantegna painted this probably in the early 1480s, and it was still in his studio when he died in 1506, listed among his possessions. He puts us at the very feet of the dead Christ and drags the body back into the picture in steep foreshortening, so we look straight into the wounds in the feet and along the length of the corpse to the grieving faces beyond. He even shrank the feet slightly so they would not block the body, a small cheat that keeps the figure readable. There is no gold, no glory, just cold stone, a marble slab and the hard fact of a body. Contemporaries found the viewpoint almost indecent, which is part of why Mantegna seems to have kept it close rather than sold it.