Program 10
Mannerism: Italy
Objectives
After watching the program and participating in post-viewing discussion and activities, students should be able to
•
recognise the styles of five Mannerist painters: Pontormo, Parmigianino, Bronzino, Tintoretto, and Michelangelo
•
understand that Mannerism in Italian painting occurred in response to three factors: rejection of Renaissance style in
favour of something new; political and economic crises; and Michelangelo's [cf. Program 9] changing vision and
circumstances
Before the Program
1.
List the program title and artists' names on the board.
2.
Ask students to describe what they associate with Mannerist painting. What particular images, colours, ideas, or
places-if any - do they associate with Italian painting from 1525 to 1600? Record these images on the board and
refer to them in your post-viewing discussion.
3.
If students are not familiar with the term Mannerism, ask them to speculate about the definition. Ask students to
brainstorm some qualities or features that an art focused on Mannerism might possess.
4.
Tell students to pay close attention to the styles and favourite subjects of each artist presented. They will have an
opportunity to test their ability to identify each artist's style at the end of the program.
Program Summary
Pontormo's tormented, eerie religious paintings, Parmigianino's elongated limbs, Bronzino's elegant and haughty
portraits, Tintoretto's swirling cyclones, Michelangelo's "last judgement" - all combine to give the distorted, feverish,
tense, contorted, magnificent style called Mannerism its character. At the end of the program, the narrator quickly reviews
each artist before flashing a work by each on the screen for students to identify.
Presentation of Artists
In this program, artists and their paintings are discussed in the following order.
1 .Pontormo, Jacopo da (Jacopo Carruci, 1494-1556)
Entombment
Michelangelo (sculpture) (detail)
Sistine Chapel (detail) (Michelangelo)
Cosimo de' Medici
Maria Salvati and Her Son Cosimo
Visitation
Virgin, Chi/d, and Infant St. John
St. John the Evangelist and His Archangel Michael
2. Parmigianino (Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzuoli,1503-1540)
Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror
Madonna of the Long Neck
Pieta (Michelangelo)
Madonna and Child, St. Zechariah, La Maddalena, and St. John
Conversion of St. Paul
3. Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano, 1503-1572)
Ludovico Capponi
St. John the Baptist
Portrait of a Young Man
Portrait of Don Garzia
Bia De Cosimo de'Medici
Portrait of Giuliana with Book
Lucretia de' Medici
Young Man with Book
Portrait of Bartholomeo Panciatichi
Lucretia Panciatichi
Cosimo I de'Medici
Eleanora of Toledo and Her Son Giovanni de'Medici
Portrait of a Young Man
5. Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti, 1518-1594)
Portrait of a Moor
Christ in the House of Martha and Mary
The Last Supper
Christ at the Sea of Galilee
Carrying of St. Mark's Body
St. Mark Freeing a Christian Slave
6. Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564)
The Last Judgement
Short Review of Artists
Using the following paintings to illustrate their styles, the narrator provides a brief review of each artist.
1. Pontormo - Entombment (detail)
2. Parmigianino - Madonna of the Long Neck
3. Bronzino - Portrait of a Young Man
4. Tintoretto - St. Mark Freeing a Christian Slave
5. Michelangelo - The Last Judgement
Student Challenge
At the conclusion of the program, students are invited to identify the artists who created the following works.
1.
Portrait of Francesco de' Medici (Bronzino)
2.
Mistiche De Santa Catarina (Parmigianino)
3.
The Last Judgment (detail) (Michelangelo)
4.
Cain and Abel (Tintoretto)
5.
Madonna (Pontormo)
After the Program
Duplicate and distribute the student summary sheet on page 50. Use the summary sheet as a means to review with
students the artists and their styles. The glossary will help students identify unfamiliar terms, places, and people.
Discussion Questions
1.
Which of the Mannerist artists is best de- scribed by an eerie quality to the painting, confusing and undefined space,
tormented- looking figures and weak or “jelly-bean" colours? (Pontormo)
2.
Why do you think Parmigianino elongated his figures, as seen in Madonna of the Long Neck? (possible answers: to
create a more noble looking figure; to heighten the spiritual content of the painting; to emphasise a more graceful
look)
3.
What are the Mannerist characteristics of Bronzino's paintings? (elegant, haughty, cold, tense, elongated, drawn with
expert draughtsmanship)
4.
What compositional devices did Tintoretto use to pull the viewer into his paintings? (diagonal composition, funnel
perspective, and exaggerated foreshortening)
5.
Why is Michelangelo's Last Judgement regarded as the culmination of Mannerism? (By the time Michelangelo
painted this last work, the characteristics of Renaissance painting had been carried to an extreme, and individual
styles had emerged. Most of these individual characteristics can be seen in The Last Judgement.)
Activities
Analysing Art
1.
Show students several paintings by El Greco and Tintoretto. Tell them that El Greco studied with Tintoretto. Discuss
any influences of Tintoretto on El Greco's work.
2.
Guide the students' observations of art of the present, with a simple overview of movements in Modern Art since
1925. Include Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Op Art, Colour Field Painting, New Realism, Photo-Realism, and
Post-Modernism. Compare this fin de siecle array of movements with the varieties of art during the Mannerist period
and at the end of the century, 1520-1600. Discuss the similarities between the two periods. Mannerism bridged the
gap to Baroque art. Does this give us any clue to the art of the next period?
Art Making
Ask students to bring photographs of themselves to school. Photocopy each photo- graph, enlarging it to 8 ½ " x 11", if
possible. Have students draw a grid on the photocopy, establishing 1" squares. On a piece of drawing paper
approximately 9" x 13", each student should draw a grid using the number of lines, only deliberately distorting the grid.
They should then draw the image from the photocopied grid onto the warped grid, matching each square. The resulting
image will be distorted and exaggerated, with some of the characteristics of Mannerism translated in a unique way.
Interdisciplinary Activities Writing
Have each student select a work of art from this program as the focus of a writing assignment. Then have students find
reproductions of their works in library or text books or other sources so that they will have longer access to the work than
available on video. The specific assignment can be tailored to the students' writing level and to the type of writing
students are currently doing (see Program 1) .
History
Have students continue the time line assignment as described in Program 1.
Vocabulary
Have students continue the "New Words" card file described in Program 1.
Student Summary Sheet 10
Mannerism: Italy
Mannerism in sixteenth century Italian painting is represented best by the distorted yet elegant works of Pontormo,
Parmigianino, Bronzino, Tintoretto, and Michelangelo.
Artist
Pontormo
Parmigianino
Bronzino
Tintoretto
Michelangelo
Major Work
Entombment
Madonna of the Long Neck
Portrait of a Young Man
Christ at the Sea of Galilee
Last Judgement
Clues
Eerie colours, disjointed space
Elongation
Elegance, haughtiness
Funnel perspective
Muscular bodies, motion and emotion
Glossary
Alexandria - city on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt, west of the Nile Delta, founded in 332 BC, by Alexander the Great.
archetype - original model after which other similar things are patterned.
Elizabeth - the mother of John the Baptist and a kinswoman of Mary, mother of Jesus.
foreshorten - to represent the long axis of an object by contracting its lines so as to produce an illusion of projection in
space.
piazza - public square in an Italian city or town.
scuola - Italian word for school.
viceroy - governor of a country, province, or colony.
50 Program 1o-Mannerism: Italy