“Andrea Mantegna” at the Musée du Louvre, through January 5, 2009

The Louvre has organized the first major retrospective on French soil of the work of Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506), presenting him as the earliest major exponent of Renaissance ideas in northern Italy. Setting out to trace the artist’s career, influences, and legacy, the exhibition displays not only paintings but also drawings and engravings by Mantegna, as well as works by contemporaries and successors including Giovanni Bellini, Leonardo da Vinci, and Antonio da Correggio. The context is thus set for the particularities of Mantegna’s oeuvre: Exquisite but sometimes curiously stiff, his paintings feature strong compositions betraying his love of sculpture and architecture, and conferring both loftiness and gravitas on his (principally religious) subjects. More emotional responses from some of Mantegna’s rivals and successors stand in contrast to his dignified, contemplative calm.

Andrea Mantegna, "Adoration of the Shepherds" (1455–56)

© 1991 The Metropolitan Museum of Art