Battle of the Sea Gods [left half]

Andrea Mantegna

National Gallery of Art

Printed with black ink on light tan paper, this horizontal engraving shows a tight group of three muscular men riding imaginary creatures and an old woman standing behind them to our left, all with mouths dropped wide open. The men are spaced evenly across the picture, and they and the woman are all nude. The man on our left faces us and rides a scale-covered creature. The animal has a fish tail at the back and long talons at the front. The dragon-like mouth gapes open, and a forked tongue flicks out over sharp teeth. The rider holds the reins of the snarling creature in one hand and holds a tall staff in the other. The old woman stands behind him with one foot on the creature’s back. Her other leg is hidden by that man’s body. The woman’s long hair flows back from her wrinkled face, and her long, thin breasts droop off her emaciated body. Her jaw drops open, and her gaunt cheeks are hollow. She holds a fluttering cloak in her right hand, closer to us, and in the other, she holds out a sign about the size of a postcard that reads “INVID.” The sign hangs from a ribbon over the head of the man in the middle who engages with the third man to the right. They both ride animals with horses’ bodies and coiling serpents’ tails. The men and steeds face each other, also with mouths wide open and teeth bared. The man in the center holds a bunch of fish up behind his head in one hand. The third man’s cloak swirls behind his head as he lunges forward, thrusting a rod at the man in the middle. The hair, beards, and ears of these two men are formed by leaves. Beyond these two stands a sculpture of a naked man seen from the back. His head is turned to our left to look at the trident he holds in that hand, while the other cradles what appears to be a small dolphin. He stands on a tall base and an oval frame, perhaps a mirror, hangs on the wall opposite him among a bank of reeds. The ground around and under the animals is made of wavy lines to suggest water. A hill to our left and buildings atop a mountain at the center are far in the distance and deep in shadow. The artist used dense areas of thin black lines to build the shadows in the background and on the people and creatures.