Andrea Mantegna, Camera Picta

We've walked into the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua, the largest castle in Italy. With hundreds of rooms. 500 rooms and courtyards. And it gives us a sense of the enormous ambition of the Gonzaga family who ruled Mantua for hundreds of years. But the most famous room in this elaborate complex is relatively small. It's called the Camera Picta. The Painted Room. Specifically called, apparently, by the Duke and his family and the court, The Painted Room. And that's because it was painted by one of the most famous, most capable, most extraordinary artists of the Italian Renaissance, Andrea Mantegna. Mantegna was from not too far away Padua. And then he worked also in Verona. But then he was invited to come to work for Ludovico III, the Marchesio of Mantua. Ludovico really wanted Mantegna to work for him. Ludovico was a humanist and understood the value that art could bring. And Mantegna had, according to reports, a very slow working method. And he worked on this room for almost 10 years. The room is square and painted on all four sides and on the ceiling. Let's start with the wall to the left as we walk in. The scene moves from right to left, where we see figures coming through a doorway, a landscape outside, being greeted by two figures who are acting as gatekeepers to Ludovico and his family and other members of the court. A large textile is being moved to the side so that they can actually gain access. And the family, those closest to the ruler, are on the left. The people who are entering are really kept in some distance on the right. On the left, the action is focused around Ludovico himself, who is apparently in the middle of doing the work of being the ruler of Mantua. He's got a letter in his hand. We can see that he's just unfolded it. He's turning around to speak to a courtier, presumably who's delivered the letter. Ludovico is speaking with him, engaging in conversation about the content of the letter. And so we're given this privileged view, although there are limits to that privilege. We don't know what the letter is about. We don't know what's actually being spoken. But we do get a sense of the day-to-day activities of the ruler and of the court. Look at how specific each figure is. These are portraits. There's a large window to the right of this painting. And the artist has taken pains to make sure that the real light that is entering into this room seems to be illuminating these images. So we can see that the left side of Ludovico's face is brilliantly illuminated. The right side is almost completely in shadow. And that's true not only on the face of Ludovico, but on every element in this painting. Everything is responding to the natural light in this room. The figure on the far left is leaning down slightly so that he could put his ear to Ludovico and hear what his instructions are. Ludovico himself in this fabulous velvet or silk robe turns his shoulders toward us and tilts his neck in a very natural way. The relative stillness of the other figures indicates, I think, a kind of nobility and dignity. This can be seen clearly in Barbara of Brandenburg, who was married to Ludovico III. She has her arm around her daughter while her left hand seems to almost absentmindedly touch the folds of her dress. And she also seems to be looking over at the conversation. And look at the beautiful handling of the brocade of the dress that she wears. We have no doubt of the wealth of the Gonzaga court. None of the figures look directly at us down below, with the sole exception of a woman with dwarfism who looks at us with a kind of imperiousness, with a kind of disdain that suggests that we're not worthy of the attention of the people above us. We're observers, but we can only get so close. I especially get that feeling with the figure in front of the plaster, who has his hands on his hip, his sword at his side, and does look quite imperious as he blocks the passageway of those who are coming to visit Ludovico. To the left of the wall with the fireplace is the wall that we walked in. And here we're treated to a scene that is constructed to seem as if we're in a kind of loggia, looking out at a landscape. And this is a conceit that has its origins in a painting from ancient Rome. Let's start by looking at the leftmost panel. The feature here that makes me know that we're looking at a painting by Andrea Mantegna is the perfect foreshortening of this beautifully dressed horse. The two figures engage in conversation. We see a distant city on a hill. You just have this extraordinary visual variety. He's entertaining us. Just beside the doorway, you have two men who are rather squeezed in and seem to be paying too much attention to the lintel of the doorway. But above that, you have this wonderful group of putti. Here, the wings are not the traditional wings of an angel. Instead, they're actually butterfly wings. Look at the putti that stands on the right. His elbow is casting a shadow across his face. That's the level of pictorial veracity that the artist is giving us. But holding this placard up seems to actually be hard work because the two putti seem to have taken a break. I'm really struck by Mantegna's attention to the human body. This central panel is clearly intended to delight, and it does. But the most important message on this wall can be seen in the panel on the right. We see again Ludovico facing us. It is his son, Francesco, who had been made a cardinal at the age of 17. To the far right, another son, Frederico. These three figures are by far the largest figures in this panel, and that sense of scale signals their importance, especially since the figures in back of them are actually quite important themselves. Well, the figures right behind Francesco are the King of Denmark and the Holy Roman Emperor. The way in which all of the figures are standing above us reminds me of a famous ancient Roman monument, the Ara Pacis. And in that, we see the ancient Roman ruler, Augustus, with his family, including with children. And although we certainly don't know whether Mantegna would have seen fragments of the Ara Pacis, it does seem likely that he would have seen something like it. And the fact that all of the figures are grouped together as a frieze also tells us that Mantegna is looking at ancient Roman art. Here, Mantegna has really taken pains to create this extraordinary, expansive landscape that includes classical buildings, both intact and in ruins. We're seeing the walls of a city with a city gate, a building that looks to me like the Colosseum in Rome. We're seeing something that appears almost like an aqueduct with a series of round arches. We also see, on a plinth, a sculpture that looks like the Hercules at rest, a type of ancient Roman figure that was very common. We see livestock and farm workers in the fields. But perhaps most interestingly, we see people working with stone. There's what looks like a little bit of aquarium with some large slabs of stone and people sitting beside a column that's in the process of being carved. We see figures quarrying stone. And carrying large blocks of stone up the hill. But the real treat in this room is not on the walls. It's the ceiling. The ceiling is a tour de force of illusionism. We see busts of ancient Roman emperors. They appear to be carving, but we know that they're made of paint. The eight Roman emperors are framed by gold mosaic with carved stonework surrounding them that is so tactile. It feels as if you ran your hand over it, you would feel the ridges, and yet it's all paint. It's a kind of technical mastery that is almost hard to believe. Look at Augustus. He wears a crown. The light that defines the muscles of his neck are extraordinary. And then look at the caress. You've got a winged putti who himself is crowned. On the right, a centaur. And then on the left, you have a medallion that depicts Medusa. The level of detail here is astonishing. But all of this fictive stonework and these eight emperors are actually just a frame for the most playful part of the entire painting, this oculus. It looks as if the ceiling has opened up to the sky, and now we realize there are people looking down at us. There are figures looking down in a playful and yet menacing way, as though they could at any moment drop things on us. There are putti who stick their heads through the openings of the balustrade. There's a peacock. One of the putti is holding an apple that he seems ready to release right onto our heads. But I think more concerning is that there's an orange tree in a barrel supported only by a round dowel. It seems as if that potted plant might roll off the ledge right onto us. We're the butt of their joke, in fact. While the court of Gonzaga were not paying attention to us, these people are. There are three young women that look directly at us, and to the right of the potted plant is a very well-dressed woman, and then a figure of African origin wearing a turban. The most entertaining figure of all, though, is the figure who stands on the inside of the balustrade, where there's barely enough room for his little feet to stand. The foreshortening of his body is absolutely perfect, clearly something Mantegna had mastered and really enjoyed painting. Well, look at the linear perspective that Mantegna is employing. If you look at the orthogonals defined by the balustrade, these condensed circles that seem to perfectly rise from our perspective, you get a sense of Mantegna's incredible ability to define space, to define form, to make it all seem real. This idea of creating an illusion of looking up at something at a very extreme angle is something that art historians call di sotto in su, and Mantegna gives us a very early example of this in the Renaissance, and this is something that we'll continue to see, especially in the art of the Baroque period when we think about illusionistic ceilings, for example, those in Il Gesu in Rome. You can only imagine how delighted Ludovico must have been to watch this painting as it was produced and to then delight in bringing only very particular people into this room. I think that this room expresses Ludovico's sense of humor, but also his ambition. Only a great artist like Mantegna could express this so beautifully for the Marchesi. And for all of us ever since.