The Agony in the Garden

Andrea Mantegna's Agony in the Garden, painted around 1450 and now in the National Gallery, London, depicts Christ in prayer on the Mount of Olives with the disciples sleeping below. Painted alongside Giovanni Bellini's version of the same subject, the two paintings offer a fascinating study in contrasting artistic temperaments. Mantegna's version features a rocky, mineral landscape with Jerusalem depicted as an ancient Roman city, reflecting his archaeological approach to biblical narrative.

Mantegna renders the landscape with extraordinary geological precision, creating a crystalline, stratified rocky terrain that transforms the Mount of Olives into a monumental stone formation, with the sleeping apostles modeled like sculptural reliefs.