MannerismMajor 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. RENAISSANCERationalCalm, harmoniousOrdered, stableEvenly litIdeal proportionsClear narrativeNatural or idealSymmetryLogical use of space

MANNERISM Emotionaldisturbing, clashing colourAgitated, strong movementDramatically litExaggerated proportionsConfusing narrativeUnnatural, bizarreAsymmetricalFigures 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.

• 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.

Parmagianino,Madonna with the Long Neck,

1534-40

Little guy

and this column is for what???

Quite a crowd

KEY IMAGE

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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 flame-like 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.