: the face is wan and haggard.
The body is modelled to emphasise the pronounced lines of the big
curve formed by the ribs from which the lower part of the body is fast
sinking: Donatello did the same thing with the crucifix. An angel
stands at each side of the Christ, holding up a curtain or pall behind
the figure. Each of these boys has a hand pressed against his cheek,
the picture of tragedy: they weep over the dead Saviour, their anguish
is indescribable. In the marble version of the same subject in
London,[200] the angels are actually supporting the Christ, who,
without their maintenance, would fall down. His head is resting
against one of the children's hands: one of the arms has slipped down
inanimate, while the other hangs over the shoulder of the second
angel, a consummate rendering of what is dead: the veins are tumified,
the skin is shrinking, and the muscles are uncontrolled. This Christ
is in some ways the more remarkable plastic achievement, though it is
not so characteristic as the Paduan version. The two reliefs are
probably coeval, though that in London, with its attendant angels, has
indications of being rather earlier in date, and almost shows the hand
of Michelozzo in one or two details. But the head of Christ, with its
short thin beard, and the hair held back by a corded fillet, is
similar to much that is exclusively Paduan. The Entombment, a very
large marble relief, consists of eight life-sized figures, four of
whom are lowering the body into the sepulchre. Here for the first time
we have that frenzied and impassioned scene which became so common in
Northern Italy. The Entombment on the St. Peter's Tabernacle is
insipid by the side of this, where grief leads the Magdalen to tear
out thick handfuls of her hair; others throw up their hands as they
abandon themselves, as they scream in ungovernable sorrow. It is a
riot of woe, and the more solemn figures who are engaged with the dead
body have grown grey with care. This relief dates a new departure: the
Entombment and other episodes of the Passion henceforward lose their
calm emblematic character, and are fraught with tragedy and gloom.
Donatello's relief became the prototype for the Bellini, for Mantegna,
and a host of artists who, without, perhaps, having seen the original,
drew their inspiration from what it had already inspired. For a while
this intensification of the last scenes of Christ's life bore good
fruit for art, especially in the northern