1. PART 5
MANNERISM 1530

2. Context: Historic Events and the fragmentation of the Christian monolith
The sack of Rome
1527 by Charles V, invasion of Italy
Pope Clement VII under siege in Castel Sant’ Angelo
The Reformation
Martin Luther, John Calvin break from the Church in Rome
1517, the Reformation is born
Universal Inquisition
C. 1550, the beginnings of the Counter-Reformation

3. Context: Historic Events and the fragmentation of the Christian monolith
Copernicus
Publishes On the Revolutions of the Planets and Their Orbits in 1543 and results in the following questions
New consciousness of earth’s significance (or insignificance), man is not the center of creation
Weakening of man’s belief in miracles and divine intervention
Peasant revolts and religious wars throughout Europe
Threats of encroaching Ottoman Turks from the east

4. General Characteristics
The breaking up of the Renaissance sense of unity
Virtuosity of technique, tendencies to over-refinement/self-consciously contrived attitudes
Self-referential to world of art and previous art-making, appreciation and puns
Attempt to shock audience with subject matter and presentation

6. SYLISTIC CHARACTERISTICS of MANNERIST PAINTING
Cramped compositions: crowded pictorial space filed with figures blotting out the background
Undefinable space: space appears too shallow or undefined for what is takin place in it
Exaggeration: fanciful gestures and attitudes, deliberately intricate groupings
Movement: figures are characterized by athletic bending and twisting
Distortion: unnatural elongation in the body, unrealistically small heads
Unbalanced compositions: unstable groupings of figures
Nervous: Quality of restlessness that leads to distortion, exaggeration, and bizarre posturing
Un-classical: center of compositions are often left void or there is an absence of one focal point
Self-conscious: figures look out into viewer’s space, anxiously
Subjective colors: unnatural color
Idiosyncratic: highly individual choice of subject matter and interpretation

7. VOCABULARY Idiosyncratic Exaggeration Composition Subjective Artifice
Serpentinata
Focal point

8. JACOPO DA PONTORMO Descent from the Cross
-Christ’s descent from the Cross, omitted the cross and the tomb (playing on viewers expectations of what is happening0
-On a vertical axis, instead of horizontal
-Void in center, instead of a mass, calls attention to the void
-Distorted, elongated bodies
-Colors are light blue and pink
-Departure from balance and harmony of the Renaissance

9. PARMIGIANINO Madonna with the Long Neck
ca Oil on wood, approx. 7’ 1” x 4’ 4”. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

10. Mannerist Sculpture

11. GIOVANNI DA BOLOGNA
Abduction of the Sabine Women
Loggia dei Lanzi, Piazza della Signoria, Florence, Italy, completed Marble, approx. 13’ 6” high.

12. Mannerist Architecture

13. GIULIO ROMANO interior courtyard facade of the Palazzo del Tè, Mantua, Italy, 1525–1535.

14. Alternate View General View, E side of main courtyard
© 2005 Saskia Cultural Documentation, Ltd.