Agony in the Garden
Andrea Mantegna·1459
Historical Context
Andrea Mantegna's Agony in the Garden, painted around 1459, is a predella panel from the San Zeno Altarpiece, now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours. The panel depicts Christ praying on the Mount of Olives while his disciples sleep, with the approaching soldiers visible in the background. Like the companion predella panels, it was removed from Verona by Napoleonic troops. The rocky, mineralized landscape is one of Mantegna's most extraordinary passages of geological painting.
Technical Analysis
Mantegna's extraordinary rendering of the rocky landscape creates a crystalline, almost geological landscape with precisely observed stone formations, while the sleeping apostles demonstrate his characteristic sculptural figure modeling.
