debra wrote:
They're not in the same plane. The arches in the hedge are wide enough to walk through comfortably, about a meter/three feet. The flying babes are to her side, parallel to her left shoulder, above and slightly behind the cloven-footed mama. The mama and the babe closest to Pallas are in the same plane, parallel to Pallas's shield, and probably two meters away.
She's looking at the people in the clouds.
As Pen pointed out, the compositional aspect of line of sight is more important than precise accuracy of perspective. Pallas'
line of sight compositionally (for our benefit) includes both the first putto as well as the descending Virtues (I've put two pink lines to suggest the range where she could be looking). But, if we were to look exactly where her eyes are looking, she appears to be looking at the pinnacle of the rock in which the Mother of Virtues is imprisoned.
Here are some lines -
http://www.rosscaldwell.com/art/mantegnalines.jpg
Among other things, it makes it clear that the women in pink and light green in the background are actually smaller than the goddess and the personifications of vice - not just an effect of distance, but "really". The arched hedgerow just in front of which they are walking joins the row of arches out of which Minerva is emerging. The former arches - the actual arches, not the height of the top of the row, which is exactly the same as Minerva's arches - are about 1/10 higher than the tops of the archways of Minerva's row. Minerva is over 5/8 of the height of the archway out of which she has emerged (she is "11cm" on my screen, while the arch is 17cm), while the ladies in the background are less than half the height of their arches (they are 5.5cm on my screen) - we can't see the bottoms, but since they join Minerva's row, they must end there, on the same level as the ground upon which the ladies are walking. If the larger arches were placed in front of Minerva's arch, then, they would be roughly 18.7cm high, making the ladies, at less than half their height, about 9cm tall, or two centimeters shorter than Minerva.
But the ladies are
exactly the same size as the figure of Justice in the cloud (the pink rectangles are identical in size). This would suggest that the Virtues are directly above the women. But it is more reasonable to think that they are actually at least as big as Pallas herself, in which case the Virtues are some distance behind the arched hedges, and Pallas would have to be turning her head away from us, the viewers, to be looking at them. Even if they were directly above the ladies, her head would have to be turned more.
I'm sure some basic trigonometry could figure out exactly where the Virtues are in relation to the archways if they are the same size as Minerva, but it's clear in any case that they are not "on the same plane" as where her eyes are looking.
This is a case where seeing Minerva's face is more important than perfect three-dimensional accuracy, and Mantegna wanted to include everything in her line of sight from OUR two-dimensional perspective, not necessarily on the same three-dimensional plane. Or, if she is just supposed to be looking at something, then it is the pinnacle of the rock, and neither the Virtues nor the putto.
I'd say that there is some confusion about perspective in the back part of the garden anyway, so we should not take things too "literally" in this composition. Look at the faun-vice, with the babies, beside Minerva - she would be much taller than the goddess if she stood up. That hardly seems fair.