High Renaissance: Mannerism
Begins in Florence 1520s – return of Medici rule 1530
Reasserting spirituality
Characteristics
Departs from balance, harmony, structure of High Renaissance
Explores new concepts of beauty
Elegance as a goal
Flowing, curving, delicate
Emphasis on heads, hands, feet – carriers of grace
Byzantine elongation
Artificiality – not based on nature
Shift from simple, straightforward form / structure of High Renaissance
Crowded frames – pushing everything to front plane
Blotting out setting
Lack of visual depth
Framing of figural masses
Figures pulled beyond edges
Distortion of forms
Random placement of figures
Emphasis on intricate allegory
Lascivious undertones
Ambiguity – enigmatic
Works more staged / contrived
Jacopo da Pontormo
Studied with Leonardo (early)
Reclusive, withdrawn
Descent from the Cross (Entombment) (1525-1528)
Capponi Chapel, Santa Felicità, Florence
Chapel designed by Brunelleschi
Style
No clear focal point
Views in all direction
Impossible contortions – figures don’t occupy space
Clashing colors
Void in center – contrast to High Renaissance structure
Purpose
Meditative – dreamlike, unreal
Eucharistic
Removed symbols of event – no cross, no tomb, no setting
Parmigianino
Madonna with the Long Neck (ca. 1535)
Ornamental beauty
Artificial look – at odds with theme
Figures are ambiguous / cryptic
Infant Christ as lamentation figure
Pietà
Pillars
Whipping post from the passion?
Mary as gateway to heaven?
Male figure – Prophet?
Amphora – a womb?
Bronzino
Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time (ca. 1546)
(The Exposure of Luxury or Venus Disarming Cupid)
Commissioned by Cosimo I de’ Medici
Gift for King Francis I of France
Literary qualities of poetry and allegory
Time reveals (or hides) the scene from Truth (or Fraud)
Incestuous action
Jealousy – tears her hair
Syphilis – ravages of sexual encounters
Folly – boy with roses
Pleasure – rosy cheeked girl with serpent’s tail
Offers honeycomb (sweetness)
Masks symbolize deceit
Doves of Venus – stepped on by Cupid?
Foolishness of Love combined with envy and inconstancy?
Mannerist Portraiture
Formality of poses – staid, reserved
Props
Ambiguous setting
Elegance
Hands
Bronzino
Portrait of a Man
Portrait of a Youth
Tintoretto
Mannerist, but not Mannerist
Uses mannerist devices but incorporates drama, spirituality
Venetian color
Miracle of the Slave
St. Mark saving Christian slave
Dramatic motion
Use of contrary motions – figures not moving together
Reminiscent of Bologna’s Abduction of the Sabine Women
Motion’s nexus b/w St. Mark and executioner
Mannerist motion, but picture is contained
(Mannerist extends beyond frame)
Venetian golds, reds, blues
Last Supper
Dark and ghostly
Compare to Leonardo’s
Leonardo’s: balanced, geometrical, closed space
Tintoretto’s: dark, infinite background, chiaroscuro, undefined space
Quattrocento arrangement rotated
Judas isolated / insignificant
Originally seen at an angle – at end of railing
Continued perspective
Cluttered and busy interior – contrast to biblical story
Reasserts central spirituality of transubstantiation
Counter-Reformation