Mantegna’s Disquiet

‘At school I learnt that the thought-worlds of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance stood awkwardly next to each other, and the problem has remained with me. A part of the problem was how they made likenesses of the outside world, or even what they considered the outside world to be.  I worked for a time on how rituals have their effect in the Middle Ages. In 1992, I went to the exhibition of Mantegna’s work in the Royal Academy in London, and since then have been struck by the angry, adept, fierce and exuberant presence of his paintings.’ In this lecture Peter Cramer will make a reading of the frescoes made by Mantegna on the walls of the ‘Painted room’ or Camera picta in the palace in Mantua, Italy. He will discuss what he finds to be this ‘troubling room’ and will end up by showing that its brilliant disquiet has something to do - perhaps - with the capacity of painting to bring redemption. 

Peter Cramer taught History of Art at Winchester College for over ten years.