"La maniera secca": A proposito dello stile del primo periodo di Andrea Mantegna

Abstract

The essay addresses the question of how Andrea Mantegna might have become acquainted with and appreciated the achievements of early Renaissance and Late Gothic in Northern Europe, and how he interacted with them. Firstly, it collects and reconsiders the sources witnessing the artist's direct or indirect relationship with the Flemish art, through his possible acquaintance with Rogier van der Weyden, or through the objects of art displayed in the Gonzaga palaces. Since Mantegna's background was deeply influenced by the aesthetic ideals of Late Gothic, an international current involving without prejudice the Italian workshops as well as the Transalpine ones, many characteristics of the artist's style — even if not yet clearly recognized by the scholars — reveal an intimate tie with the Late Gothic taste — which obviously is not equal to defining Mantegna as a Gothic master. Secondly, the recognition of those aspects of International Gothic allows us also to relate a great deal of Mantegna's artistic output to the powerful school of early Renaissance sculpture in Southern Germany, whose influence reached also the southernmost Alpine valleys in the Veneto, reaching as far as to Verona and Padua (the latter — a city where, though close to Venice, numerous German or Transalpine sculptors, contemporary to Mantegna, are documented to have worked).