Agony in the Garden (Mantegna)

Christ kneels on a shelf of barren rock to pray while Peter, James, and John sleep on, oblivious; five child-angels hover on a cloud bearing the column, cross, and lance of the Passion to come. Along the winding road Judas already leads the soldiers out from a fantastical Jerusalem (Matthew 26:36-46). Mantegna renders the geology with an engraver's precision, every stratum and pebble sharp-edged. He painted it in friendly rivalry with his brother-in-law Giovanni Bellini, who treated the same scene more softly; the two versions now hang together in London, a lesson in temperament.