The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (293 page)
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Authors: Ian Chilvers
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Manship , Paul
(1885–1966).
American sculptor. He worked in an elegant, streamlined style, his beautifully crafted figures characterized by clarity of outline and suave generalized forms, and he achieved great success as a sculptor of public monuments. One of his best-known works is the gilded bronze
Prometheus
(1933) in Rockefeller Center Plaza, New York. Manship was also an excellent portraitist. Because of the stylization of his work, derived partly from his interest in archaic sculpture, he for a time had a reputation as a pioneer of modern sculpture in America, but his modernism was of a very facile kind and by about 1940 he was being labelled an academic artist.
American sculptor. He worked in an elegant, streamlined style, his beautifully crafted figures characterized by clarity of outline and suave generalized forms, and he achieved great success as a sculptor of public monuments. One of his best-known works is the gilded bronze
Prometheus
(1933) in Rockefeller Center Plaza, New York. Manship was also an excellent portraitist. Because of the stylization of his work, derived partly from his interest in archaic sculpture, he for a time had a reputation as a pioneer of modern sculpture in America, but his modernism was of a very facile kind and by about 1940 he was being labelled an academic artist.
Manson , J. B.
Mantegna , Andrea
(1431–1506).
Italian painter. He was the pupil and adopted son of
Squarcione
in Padua, growing up in a humanist atmosphere that was to colour his whole approach to art. Squarcione exploited his pupils for his own ends and at the age of 17 Mantegna gave an early indication of his formidable strength of character by taking him to court and forcing him to recognize his independence. He was remarkably precocious, and the distinctive style he created at the beginning of his career changed little over the next half century. It was a style characterized by sharp clarity of drawing, colouring, and lighting, a passion for archaeology that fed on the abundance of
classical
remains in northern Italy, and a mastery of *perspective and foreshortening unequalled in the 15th cent. These qualities were apparent in his first major commission (1448), the decoration of the Ovetari Chapel of the Eremitani Church in Padua with frescos on the lives of SS. Christopher and James (almost totally destroyed in the Second World War) and they can be seen in the celebrated
Agony in the Garden
(NG, London,
c.
1455).
In 1460 Mantegna was appointed court painter to Ludovico
Gonzaga
at Mantua, and apart from a visit to Rome in 1488–90 he remained there for the rest of his life. Mantegna was held in the highest esteem by Ludovico , by his son and successor Federico, and by Isabella d'
Este
, who married Federico's successor, Francesco. At this time Mantua was rising to take its place among the leading centres of humanist culture in Europe, and Mantegna glorified the Gonzaga family and court in his most famous work—the fresco decoration of the Camera degli Sposi (Bridal Chamber) in the Ducal Palace (completed 1474). Group portraits of the Gonzaga family, arranged in various courtly scenes, line the walls and above them are bust medallions of the Caesars, indicating that the reigning house was worthy of the Roman Empire. The most remarkable feature of the room, however, is the
illusionistic
painting of the architecture (particularly of the ceiling), which appears to extend the real space of the room. This was the first time since antiquity that such a scheme had been carried out and Mantegna's work became the foundation for much subsequent decorative painting. Mantegna's other great work for the Gonzaga was his series of nine paintings on the
Triumph of Caesar
(Hampton Court, London,
c.
1480–95)—it is often said that they were done for Francesco, but in fact it is not known which member of the family commissioned them. These large and fragile canvases have suffered dreadfully at the hands of ‘restorers’ in former centuries, but they were successfully cleaned in the 1960s and 1970s, and although they are battered and faded they still give a maravellous picture of Mantegna's magnificent powers of invention and design and rank alongside
Raphael's
tapestry
cartoons
as one of the greatest ensembles of
Renaissance
art outside Italy.
Mantegna was an engraver as well as a painter and was one of the first artists to use prints to disseminate his compositions. He also designed his own house in Mantua, and it is generally thought that he modelled the bronze bust of himself in his memorial chapel in the church of S. Andrea. At his death he was a venerated figure and his fame has never declined. His influence was profound, not only on Italian artists such as his brother-in-law Giovanni
Bellini
, but also, for example, on
Dürer
, one of the many northern artists who found his version of the
antique
particularly easy to assimilate.
Italian painter. He was the pupil and adopted son of
Squarcione
in Padua, growing up in a humanist atmosphere that was to colour his whole approach to art. Squarcione exploited his pupils for his own ends and at the age of 17 Mantegna gave an early indication of his formidable strength of character by taking him to court and forcing him to recognize his independence. He was remarkably precocious, and the distinctive style he created at the beginning of his career changed little over the next half century. It was a style characterized by sharp clarity of drawing, colouring, and lighting, a passion for archaeology that fed on the abundance of
classical
remains in northern Italy, and a mastery of *perspective and foreshortening unequalled in the 15th cent. These qualities were apparent in his first major commission (1448), the decoration of the Ovetari Chapel of the Eremitani Church in Padua with frescos on the lives of SS. Christopher and James (almost totally destroyed in the Second World War) and they can be seen in the celebrated
Agony in the Garden
(NG, London,
c.
1455).
In 1460 Mantegna was appointed court painter to Ludovico
Gonzaga
at Mantua, and apart from a visit to Rome in 1488–90 he remained there for the rest of his life. Mantegna was held in the highest esteem by Ludovico , by his son and successor Federico, and by Isabella d'
Este
, who married Federico's successor, Francesco. At this time Mantua was rising to take its place among the leading centres of humanist culture in Europe, and Mantegna glorified the Gonzaga family and court in his most famous work—the fresco decoration of the Camera degli Sposi (Bridal Chamber) in the Ducal Palace (completed 1474). Group portraits of the Gonzaga family, arranged in various courtly scenes, line the walls and above them are bust medallions of the Caesars, indicating that the reigning house was worthy of the Roman Empire. The most remarkable feature of the room, however, is the
illusionistic
painting of the architecture (particularly of the ceiling), which appears to extend the real space of the room. This was the first time since antiquity that such a scheme had been carried out and Mantegna's work became the foundation for much subsequent decorative painting. Mantegna's other great work for the Gonzaga was his series of nine paintings on the
Triumph of Caesar
(Hampton Court, London,
c.
1480–95)—it is often said that they were done for Francesco, but in fact it is not known which member of the family commissioned them. These large and fragile canvases have suffered dreadfully at the hands of ‘restorers’ in former centuries, but they were successfully cleaned in the 1960s and 1970s, and although they are battered and faded they still give a maravellous picture of Mantegna's magnificent powers of invention and design and rank alongside
Raphael's
tapestry
cartoons
as one of the greatest ensembles of
Renaissance
art outside Italy.
Mantegna was an engraver as well as a painter and was one of the first artists to use prints to disseminate his compositions. He also designed his own house in Mantua, and it is generally thought that he modelled the bronze bust of himself in his memorial chapel in the church of S. Andrea. At his death he was a venerated figure and his fame has never declined. His influence was profound, not only on Italian artists such as his brother-in-law Giovanni
Bellini
, but also, for example, on
Dürer
, one of the many northern artists who found his version of the
antique
particularly easy to assimilate.
Manzoni , Piero
(1933–63).
Italian experimental artist. He worked in a conventional figurative style until 1956, when he turned to avant-garde work. In 1957 he began to produce
Achromes
, textured white paintings influenced by
Burri
and
Klein
(whom he met in 1957), and from 1959 he devised a series of provocative works and gestures that included signing people's bodies and designating them works of art, a block on which is inscribed upside down ‘The base of the world’ (Herning Park, Denmark, 1961), and cans of his own excrement. He is regarded as one of the forerunners of
Arte Povera
and
Conceptual art
. His early death was caused by cirrhosis.
Italian experimental artist. He worked in a conventional figurative style until 1956, when he turned to avant-garde work. In 1957 he began to produce
Achromes
, textured white paintings influenced by
Burri
and
Klein
(whom he met in 1957), and from 1959 he devised a series of provocative works and gestures that included signing people's bodies and designating them works of art, a block on which is inscribed upside down ‘The base of the world’ (Herning Park, Denmark, 1961), and cans of his own excrement. He is regarded as one of the forerunners of
Arte Povera
and
Conceptual art
. His early death was caused by cirrhosis.
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