Aby Warburg
Mnemosyne Atlas

italiano
gialla

with further readings

PATHWAY VII (Panels 49, 50/51, 52)

Mantegna and Antiquity
Control, distance and inversion of pathos

This section is about the act of resistance against the unconditional surrender to the rhetorical gradeur of the ancient model. Mantegna evokes pathos by creating a deliberate distrance, rendering the bodies with the phisicality of bronze and marble. His distinctive use of perspective and light further enhances this effect, making each element appear as it were petrified. Even the grisaille, elevated from its role as a mere background motif, takes centre stage. Mantegna’s stylistic reversal finds its counterpoint in the energetic inversion of the violent and cruel pathos of the Roman Triumph, which is reinterpreted with a positive ethical declination (as seen as in the invention of the theme of Trajan’s Justice).

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ISSN 1826-901X
Mnemosyne Atlas on line [2004, 2012] 2024
  • Atlas plates 1929: ©The Warburg Institute Archive
  • english version: Elizabeth E. Thomson
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