Andrea Mantegna

Like all Italian Renaissance painters, Andrea Mantegna studied, championed, and executed the naturalistic proportions of the Greco-Roman period. Mantegna stood out for his contributions to developments of perspective in Italian painting. Although he neither developed nor employed mathematics for perspective, he achieved optical illusion–like imagery in both the backgrounds of his paintings, and within his figures. His Lamentation over the Dead Christ (c. 1480) is revolutionary because of its incredible foreshortening and realism that abandons religious magic. Christ’s dead body does not ascend to heaven, and there are no angels or spirits surrounding him, underlining the tragedy and reality of his death rather than providing comfort in a glorious afterlife.