Mannerism
Major artists: Fiorentino
Parmigianino
El Greco
The period of about 75 years between
the High Renaissance and the
Baroque period is difficult to label or
define because that would imply only
one style was practiced. Historically,
this was a time of crisis and it gave
rise to several competing tendencies
rather than one dominant style.
Mannerism
• from the Italian “maniera” meaning “style” or
“stylishness”;
• it came to suggest an art characterized by artificiality,
superficiality, and exaggeration; feebly plagiarizing and
distorting the work of the masters;
• became a period label, rather than a style label;
Characteristics:
- tension and emotionalism
- elongation of the human figure
- strained poses
- unusual or bizarre effects of scale, lighting or
perspective
- vivid (even harsh) colours
Key StylisticChanges
H. RENAISSANCE
Rational
Calm, harmonious
Ordered, stable
Evenly lit
Ideal proportions
Clear narrative
Natural or ideal
Symmetry
Logical use of space
MANNERISM
 Emotional
 disturbing, clashing colour
 Agitated, strong movement
 Dramatically lit
 Exaggerated proportions
 Confusing narrative
 Unnatural, bizarre
 Asymmetrical
 Figures cramped / empty
space
Comparison of Mannerist and High
Renaissance Art Works
Sistine Madonna 1513. Long Neck 1535
Fiorentino, Descent from the Cross
1521. Oil on canvas.
Shapes – latticework of spidery
figures spread out against a dark
sky;
- harsh, sharp lines; sharp-edged
planes
Colours – “acid colours” created by a
brilliant and unreal light;
Shape and colour create a harsh,
nightmarish effect;
• unlike the harmonious, unified
style of the Renaissance artist,
this painting differs in that it is
disquieting, anxious;
• the elongated figures, sustained
poses and emotionalism are
unlike most Renaissance art.
Parmigianino (a nickname meaning "the little
one from Parma"), also known as Girolamo
Francesco Maria Mazzola (1503-1540).
Mannerist printmaker and frescoes painter; his art best exemplifies the
characteristics of Mannerism.
Early life: travelled to Rome in 1524, his work here showed the influences of
Raphael and Michelangelo becoming more grand and graceful;
- begins to show a disturbing emotional intensity with his elongated forms,
disjointed sense of space, chill lighting and lustful atmosphere;
Later life: left Rome when it was sacked by the Germans in 1527 to return to
his hometown of Parma;
- he was contracted and complete a series of frescoes and was imprisoned
when he failed to complete the works; he became distracted by alchemy (a
medieval pre-cursor to chemistry; magic power of transmutation [the change
of one species into another], and more specifically – changing base metals
into gold);
- he grew more eccentric as he aged, letting his beard grow long, looking
disheveled and developing melancholy.
Parmigianino, Self-Portrait in a Convex
Mirror, 1524. Oil on wood.
•
•
•
•
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painted when he was just 21 years
old; his first serious work;
he had a carpenter specially
prepare the panel to appear as if it
were the same size as the mirror
he was looking into when he
painted the portrait;
uses warm browns and flesh
tones;
He hoped to demonstrate that
there was no one absolute reality,
that distortion was as natural as
the normal appearance of things;
hand and sleeve are enormously
enlarged b/c of distortion from the
mirror.
Parmigianino, Madonna with the Long
Neck, c.1535. Oil on panel.
• influenced by Raphael’s art, his
figures become a vision of unearthly
perfection;
• figures have elongated limbs, and
smooth, ivory skin;
• the Madonna’s small oval head,
slender neck and the unbelievable
length and delicacy of her hands and
frame create a beautiful if unreal
quality;
•the space is artificial, unlike the
painters of the Renaissance this
background is arbitrary; she is crowded
by a group of angels who have come to
adore the Christ-child, the emaciated
figure of St. Jerome was a requirement
of the commission and seems out of
place, also there is no sense of
purpose in the column.
KEY IMAGE
p 252
and this column is for what???
Parmagianino,
Madonna with
the Long Neck,
1534-40
Quite a crowd
Little guy
El Greco (1541-1614).
Greek name: Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος
(Doménikos Theotokópoulos)
• as a young boy he was trained in the
traditions of Late Byzantine frescos and
mosaics; he would train under Tintoretto and
Titian in the Venetian manner later;
• like the Renaissance men before him, he was
a painter, sculptor and architect;
• He uses an agitated, flickering light.
• spent 1576-1577 in Spain, here the spiritual
climate of the Counter Reformation was
especially tense and his work became
intensely religious;
• his style is characteristically eerie with
elongated, flame-like figures, cold, eerie
colours;
• his art blends the Late Byzantine (“abstract,”
or anti-naturalistic character) style with
Mannerist elements disregarding proportion,
rational picture space, and deciding that
colour should take precedence over form.
View of
Toledo, (c.
1596–1600,
oil on
canvas.
The Disrobing
of Christ,
1577–1579. Oil
on canvas.
El Greco, The Burial of Count
Orgaz, 1586. Oil on canvas.
•
El Greco’s son, bears a handkerchief
with his father’s signature and the boy’s
date of birth on it.
the painting depicts the funeral of a medieval
benefactor of the church, he was so pious
that St. Stephen and St. Augustine appeared
at his funeral to lower the body into the
grave;
•
also in attendance, local nobility, clergy,
angels and Christ;
Upper half: contains the celestial assembly and is
Venetian in style (every form [clouds, limbs,
drapery] takes part in the sweeping flamelike movement toward the figure of Christ);
Lower half: contains the earthly sphere;
represented Venetian sensuousness with the
realistic portrayal of the Spanish grandees
and the two saints who lovingly lower the
body into the ground; to unite the two halves,
the lower figures glance upward and an
angel carries the soul of the count in his
arms towards Christ; St. John and the Virgin
Mary, intercede directly to Christ on his
behalf.