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- Title
Mantegna's Fictive Bronze Judith and Dido: Beyond Exemplarity.
- Authors
Fletcher, Francis
- Abstract
Too often seen as unsophisticated rehearsals of an outmoded genre, the exemplars represented in Mantegna’s painted simulations of relief sculpture are among his most sophisticated meditations on the fraught nature of historical inquiry, the moral value of antiquity and the role of the visual artist as cultural mediator. Rather than presenting authoritative narratives of ancient subjects, the paintings embrace the ambiguity of the historical record and confront the viewer with interpretive challenges. Utilizing provocative juxtapositions and an insistently fictive technique, Mantegna compels the viewer to dwell on the falsity or conceit of his illusionism and contemplate the value of artifice as well as the limits of imitation. In choosing to represent highly contested female exemplars such as Dido, it is argued that Mantegna and his patron were engaging not only with the genre of images of famous women but also with the humanist defence of poetry and the literature of moral philosophy.
- Subjects
MANTEGNA, Andrea, 1431-1506; JUDITH (Biblical figure) in art; DIDO (Legendary character) in art; SCULPTURE in art; ART &; history; ART &; literature; WOMEN in art; 15TH century Italian painting
- Publication
Art History, 2014, Vol 37, Issue 2, p376
- ISSN
0141-6790
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/1467-8365.12080