Mannerism and Other Trends
of Late Sixteenth Century Italy
1520-1600
Mannerism comes from the Italian
word maniera meaning “mannered” or
“Style”
Key Ideas
• Mannerist art is deliberately intellectual,
asking the viewer to respond in a
sophisticated way to the spatial challenges
presented in a painting or sculpture
• Mannerist painting and sculpture are
characterized by complicated
compositions, distorted figure styles, and
complex allegorical interpretations
Key Ideas
• Mannerist architecture often employs
classical elements in a new and unusual
way that defies traditional formulas.
Historical background
• Even though the Protestant Reformation
was treated as a heresy in Italy, it had a
dramatic impact on Italian art.
• Mannerist distortions were more
appropriate in in this contentious period.
• Basic tenets of Mannerism concern the
tension between the ideal, the natural, and
the symmetrical against the real, the
artificial, and the unbalanced.
Historical background
• Catholic response to the Reformation was
the Council of Trent (1545-1563) later
termed the Counter Reformation.
• Jesuits were created for teaching and
missionary work, who became great
patrons of the arts when they saw the
power of art as a teaching tool.
Patronage and Artistic Life
• First painting academy established by Cosimo I
of Florence 1563 to train artists and improve
their status in society.
• Artists did not necessarily work for only one
patron. They tried to keep several happy at a
time.
• Benvenuto Cellini, a Mannerist sculptor, wrote
an extensive Autobiography 1558-1562 detailing
his relationship with kings and princes.
Patronage and Artistic Life
• Giorgio Vasari wrote a definitive series of
biographies on the greatest painters from
Cimabue to Michelangelo in 1550, then updated
it in 1558.
• Andrea Palladio wrote a book that became one
of the most influential books ever written on
architecture. His Four Books on Architecture
became a standard for the professional and
amateur, an influence that has been felt even
into the twentieth century.
Innovations and Characteristics of
Mannerist Architecture
• Mannerist architects engage the viewer in
the use of classical elements independent
of their original function
• Palazzo del T’e, a bold interlocking of
classical forms that were arranged in a
way to make us ponder the significance of
ancient architecture in the Renaissance.
Giulio Romano, Palazzo del
T’e, 1525-1535, Matnua, Italy
Exterior
Interior courtyard
•Horse farm and a
villa
•Unsettling
architectural setting
•Triglyphs dip into
the cornice,
creating holes
above
•Pediment corners
do not meet
•Window openings
at unconventional
locations
Engaged columns divide façade into unequal bays
Massive columns carry almost no weight, a narrow cornice
Keystone pops out of the arches
Oddly sized stones
Highly unusual placement of arch, below a pediment
Giacomo della
Porta, Il Gesu’
façade, 15751584, Rome
•Head church of the Jesuit
order
•Column groupings
emphasize central
doorway
•Tympana and pediment
over central door
•Slight crescendo of forms
toward the center
Two stories separated
by cornice; united by
scrolls
Framing niche acts as
a unifying device
Interior has no aisles,
meant for grand
ceremonies
Innovations of Mannerist Painting
• Typical High Renaissance painting had a
perspective that led the eye to a central point.
Mannerists chose to discard conventional
theories of perspective by having the eye
wander around a picture plane or use the
perspective to create an interesting illusion
• Mannerists used High Renaissance forms as a
starting point to freely change the ideals of the
previous generation.
Innovations of Mannerist Painting
• Mannerists defied the conventional
classical order and rationality of High
Renaissance that gave it the style much of
its appeal.
• New artistic subject; Still life, understood
as lowest form of painting, it was accepted
by seventeenth century Holland
• Genre: was introduced as scenes of
everyday life, became acceptable.
Jacopo da Pontormo,
Entombment, 1525-1528,
oil on wood, Santa Felicita’
, Florence
•Hole in the center of the
circular composition
•Elongation of bodies
•High-keyed colors, perhaps
taking into account the
darkness of the chapel
•No ground line for many
figures; what is Mary sitting
on?
•Hands seem
disembodied
•Some androgynous
figures
•No weeping, just
yearning
•Linear bodies twisting
around one another
Antonio Correggio,
Assumption of the Virgin,
1526-1530, fresco, Parma
Cathedral
•View of the sky
with hundreds of
figures flying
overhead in
concentric rings
•Weightlessness
of the bodies
•Clouds appear
as soft and
elusive masses
Saints at lowest
level; second level
has the Virgin
escorted to heaven
with angels;
celestial glory at top
with Christ waiting
to receive his
mother
Glowing colors set
in a blazing setting
that prefigures the
Baroque
Parmigianino, Madonna of the
Long Neck, 1535, oil on wood,
Uffizi, Florence
•Small head, long neck,
delicate gesture, graceful
hand
•Crowding of heads on left
•Elongated and unattached
limbs
•Column appears to be
singular at top but descends
to a row of columns at
bottom
•Small figure at the base
strangely out of proportion;
role in the painting the
painting uncertain
•Pose of Mary and Jesus
reminiscent of the Pieta’
Agnolo Bronzino,
Venus, Cupid, Folly,
and Time, 1546,
National Gallery,
London
•Commissioned by Cosimo
de’ Medici of Florence as a
gift to Francis I of France
•Complicated allegorical
structure that invites a
multiplicity of meanings
•Cupid kisses his mother
Venus, but has his eye on
her golden apple; he rests
on a pillow, indicating his
idleness
•Venus responds to Cupid,
but removes an arrow
behind his back from his
quiver
•Folly throws flowers at the
couple
•Masks are falseness; doves
are love
•Fraud or Vanity has a beautiful
face and offers a honeycomb,
but underneath she is an
animal and has a poisonous
lizard in her other hand; her
hands seem to be reversed
•Envy on the left is green; has
recently been symbolically
interpreted as syphilis
•Fury or Truth at top left;
time at top right,
exposing all
•Has been interpreted as
a morality piece about
syphilis
•Complex imagery and
poses
•Figures in a congested
composition pushed to
the forefront of the
picture plane
Jacopo Tintoretto, The Last Supper, 1594, oil on canvas,
Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome
•Christ in the center, yet powerful diagonals pull the eye into the distance
•Elongated figures
•Light reveals flying upside down angels
•Light casts long shadows
•Many details of everyday life dominate painting
•No action, no announcement of betrayal, nameless apostles, insignificant
Judas
•Christ gives the Eucharist to Saint Peter
•Point of view was originally from an angle which would
have given it more balance.
Innovations of Mannerist Sculpture
• Freed the viewer from looking only at the
frontal position such as Michelangelo and
Donatello used.
• Mannerists, like Bologna, make us move
around the work to appreciate it.
• The Mannerist painters used elongation of
figures that transferred to sculpture as
well.
Innovations of Mannerist Sculpture
• Intertwining figures have their legs and arms
inexplicably intermeshed
• Disembodied hands appear, sometimes floating
space in a mix of bodies
• Negative space, the anathema of High
Renaissance sculpture, is the hallmark of
Mannerism
• Compositions are often crowded, inviting the
viewer to examine the details to understand the
whole.
Giovanni da Bologna,
Abduction of the Sabine
Women, 1583, marble,
Florence
•Title of the work given later
•Sculpted as a set piece
•Spiral movement
• Must be seen in the round
•Negative space
•References to Laocoon
•It had been thought that the
ancients sculpted monumental
works from one block of stone;
Renaissance artists discovered
this was untrue; Bologna wanted
to surpass the ancients by
carving from one block
•Symbolism of the Medici (young
man) taking Florence (the
woman) from the preceding
government (the old man)
Classicizing Trend in Late-Fifteenth
Century Art and Architecture
• High Renaissance painting never faded in
the sixteenth century, despite Mannerist
art.
• Veronese continued to work on grand
compositions with majestic architectural
elements of size.
• Courtly gestures and theatrical elements
dominate paintings.
Classicizing Trend in Late-Fifteenth
Century Art and Architecture
• Mannerist architects, like Romano,
delighted the senses by breaking the
academic code.
• Palladio revitalized classical forms (Villa
Rotunda)
• Palladio’s San Giorgio Maggiore, is more
Mannerist in its intersection of Pediments
and columns
Paolo Veronese, Christ in the House of Levi, 1573, oil on
canvas, Academy, Venice
Originally titled Last Supper but name was changed because it
was deemed inappropriate for a sacred scene
Mary and Christ lost in a vast array of miscellaneous figures
Sumptuous setting; architecture overwhelms, courtly gestures,
brocaded costumes
Andrea Palladio, Villa Rotunda, 1566-1570, Vincenza,
Italy
•Building has four identical facades, each with a different view
•Interior has rotunda, with four larger rooms alternating with four
smaller spaces to allow for more intimate settings
•When building viewed from afar, no matter from what angle, it looks complete
•Used as a working farm, family estate, villa retreat
•Villa appears as a mini temple; perhaps a residence of the Muses; ideal nature of
the central plan evokes the ancients
•Symmetrical ground plan
•Low round Roman-style dome, not the domes of the
Renaissance
•Originally the dome had an oculus, like the Pantheon, now
glazed
•Building set on a high podium; pediments dominate doors and
windows
Andrea Palladio, San Giorgio Maggiore, 1565, Venice
•Interlocking pediments
and columns
•High pedestals for
columns
•More Mannerist than
the Villa Rotunda, two
temple facades
intersect
•Clearly lit interior
Test
• 1. The artist of this
work is
A. Tintoretto
B. Porta
C. Veronese
D Bologna
•
A.
B.
C.
D.
2. This work was
carved from one piece
of marble because
The artist wanted to
challenge the ancients
There was only one
piece of marble left in
the quarry
Marble was the
approved medium of the
ancients
The cost of marble had
gone up
•
A.
B.
C.
D.
3. Which ancient
work of sculpture
inspired this
composition?
Venus de Milo
Laocoon
Discus Thrower
Nike of Samothrace
•
A.
B.
C.
D.
4. Mannerist paintings can be
characterized by
Harmony
Symmetry
Rich colors
artifice
5. A new type of painting introduced in
the Mannerist period is the
A. Landscape
B. Mythological painting
C. Still life
D. abstract
6. Correggio’s ceiling painting at Parma
Cathedral is different than
Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling
in that Correggio’s is
A. Not divided up by architectural features
B. Not high overhead
C. Of a secular subject matter
D. Not three-dimensional
7. This building has a
Mannerist influence in
the
A. Classical forms used in
an irregular pattern
B. Dome that is low and
wide
C. Pediment that should be
placed higher on the
façade
D. Fact that there is no
Greek temple behind the
building
8. This building was
built
A. For wedding
receptions
B. For the pope’s
private apartments
C. To house horsed in
a stable
D. For religious
services
9. This building is
dramatically
located in the
A. Mediterranean Sea
B. Grand Canal in
Venice
C. Tiber River in Rome
D. Nile
10. Tintoretto’s Last Supper is different
than previous renditions of this
Biblical story in that
A. Christ is announcing that someone will
betray him
B. Judas is at the far side of the table
C. The main drama is diffused by an
elaborate grouping of subsidiary figures
D. Tintoretto painted it in a religious building
Essay
• Andrea Palladio said in his Four Books on Architecture, “Guided by
a natural inclination, I gave myself up in my most early years to the
study of architecture; And as it was always my opinion, that the
ancient Romans, as in many other things, so in building well, vastly
excelled all those who have been since their time, I proposed to
myself Vitruvius for my master and guide, who is the only ancient
writer of this art, and set myself to search in to the relics of all the
ancient edifices, that , in spite of time and cruelty of the Barbarians,
yet remain; and finding them much more worthy of observation, than
at first I had imagined, I began very minutely with the utmost
diligence to measure every one of their parts…”
• Choose and identify a building designed by Palladio. Discuss
how this building illustrates the quotation. How is the work
inspired by Roman Architecture and how does it deviate from
it? Use one side of a sheet of paper to write your essay