While the family portraits take up large parts of the North and West Walls in the
Camera degli Sposi, completed by Andrea Mantegna for the Gonzagas between 1465-74, the right section of the North Wall represents a mysterious, menacing event, perhaps connected to the family, perhaps not.
The right section shows a staircase down from the level on which we view the family. Standing near the top of the staircase are three courtiers; one in black hair faces the family, and two of them block the staircase as guards facing two men and a boy represented on the far right.
The closer we look at these figures, however, the more apparent it is that the two men facing away are not just blocking the entrance of the figure who is trying to climb the stairs. The two men in white tights position their legs to keep the figure in red hat who looks out at the viewer from coming up the stairs. The one at the back at the top of the stairs sticks out his knee to hold the space at the top of the stairs, the one closest to us sticks out his left leg to complete the thwarting of entrance.
It is not just that they wish to prevent him getting to the family space, they are saying with their body gestures, "You are not coming any further at all!"
The guard closest to us also reaches out his right arm to suggest a way for the visitor to exit, but behind the visitor the man with his son sticks out his white-tight knee with a strange look on his face. The boy gestures as if to show fear of what will happen next. The front two men are preparing to push the visitor-figure backward over the knee of the third in the corner to do the visitor harm. The boy moves to get out of the way of the next moment when the entrant will be pushed backward. The guard in the dark tunic uses his right arm out to indicate that if the man coming up the stairs puts his other foot any further, he will be pushed right off the stairs and into the space of the spectator, a drop of about five feet!
The visitor-figure whose left leg is already going up one stair looks out in surprise, and perhaps fear, directly at the viewer of the scene. Is he asking for help from the helpless spectator? At first glance he seems to be brandishing a weapon with his right arm, and has maybe hidden another under his tunic with his left hand, but upon inspection, he is just cinching the belt on his tunic. But the scene is disturbing nonetheless, and to add to the menace of this corner, in the landscape at the far right back is a half-male in tights that suggests physical threat as well, hard to see in photographs here.
threat present in the interaction of these men are Mantegna's personal vendetta
against physical threat he himself has experienced. The face of the man looking
out on the right should be the artist's face, since he stands where earlier artists
put their self-portraits; but this man is a definite person, but not the blond artist whose portraits we have discussed in another blog. Does the artist wish physical harm to this specific person? We know Mantegna had legal altercations with his early teacher, Francesco Squarcione, but this face is too young to be Squarcione. So focused are most viewers on the Gonzaga family that this corner is rarely looked at, but taken together with the menacing visual tricks played by Mantegna on the spectator with his ceiling images, this corner displays Mantegna's world view that the privileged world of the ducal family is provided at the cost of others who would like to rise up the stairs of power but are pushed back. He is showing us the aggression of the courtiers because he knows himself the peril of dependence on the court.
For readers wishing to see more of this corner, I would suggest the 360 degree view of the Camera online where it is possible to zero in on the image and all of its threats.
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