1. Mannerism and Other Trends of Late Sixteenth Century Italy
Mannerism comes from the Italian word maniera meaning “mannered” or “Style”

2. Key Ideas
Mannerist art is deliberately intellectual, asking the viewer to respond in a sophisticated way to the spatial challenges presented in a painting or sculpture
Mannerist painting and sculpture are characterized by complicated compositions, distorted figure styles, and complex allegorical interpretations

3. Key Ideas
Mannerist architecture often employs classical elements in a new and unusual way that defies traditional formulas.

4. Historical background
Even though the Protestant Reformation was treated as a heresy in Italy, it had a dramatic impact on Italian art.
Mannerist distortions were more appropriate in in this contentious period.
Basic tenets of Mannerism concern the tension between the ideal, the natural, and the symmetrical against the real, the artificial, and the unbalanced.

5. Historical background
Catholic response to the Reformation was the Council of Trent ( ) later termed the Counter Reformation.
Jesuits were created for teaching and missionary work, who became great patrons of the arts when they saw the power of art as a teaching tool.

6. Patronage and Artistic Life
First painting academy established by Cosimo I of Florence 1563 to train artists and improve their status in society.
Artists did not necessarily work for only one patron. They tried to keep several happy at a time.
Benvenuto Cellini, a Mannerist sculptor, wrote an extensive Autobiography detailing his relationship with kings and princes.

7. Patronage and Artistic Life
Giorgio Vasari wrote a definitive series of biographies on the greatest painters from Cimabue to Michelangelo in 1550, then updated it in 1558.
Andrea Palladio wrote a book that became one of the most influential books ever written on architecture. His Four Books on Architecture became a standard for the professional and amateur, an influence that has been felt even into the twentieth century.

8. Innovations and Characteristics of Mannerist Architecture
Mannerist architects engage the viewer in the use of classical elements independent of their original function
Palazzo del T’e, a bold interlocking of classical forms that were arranged in a way to make us ponder the significance of ancient architecture in the Renaissance.

9. Giulio Romano, Palazzo del T’e, 1525-1535, Matnua, Italy
Exterior
Interior courtyard

10. Engaged columns divide façade into unequal bays
Horse farm and a villa
Unsettling architectural setting
Triglyphs dip into the cornice, creating holes above
Pediment corners do not meet
Window openings at unconventional locations
Engaged columns divide façade into unequal bays
Massive columns carry almost no weight, a narrow cornice

11. Keystone pops out of the arches
Oddly sized stones
Highly unusual placement of arch, below a pediment

12. Giacomo della Porta, Il Gesu’ façade, 1575-1584, Rome

13. Head church of the Jesuit order
Column groupings emphasize central doorway
Tympana and pediment over central door
Slight crescendo of forms toward the center

14. Two stories separated by cornice; united by scrolls
Framing niche acts as a unifying device
Interior has no aisles, meant for grand ceremonies

15. Innovations of Mannerist Painting
Typical High Renaissance painting had a perspective that led the eye to a central point. Mannerists chose to discard conventional theories of perspective by having the eye wander around a picture plane or use the perspective to create an interesting illusion
Mannerists used High Renaissance forms as a starting point to freely change the ideals of the previous generation.

16. Innovations of Mannerist Painting
Mannerists defied the conventional classical order and rationality of High Renaissance that gave it the style much of its appeal.
New artistic subject; Still life, understood as lowest form of painting, it was accepted by seventeenth century Holland
Genre: was introduced as scenes of everyday life, became acceptable.

17. Jacopo da Pontormo, Entombment, 1525-1528, oil on wood, Santa Felicita’ , Florence

18. Hole in the center of the circular composition
Elongation of bodies
High-keyed colors, perhaps taking into account the darkness of the chapel
No ground line for many figures; what is Mary sitting on?

19. Hands seem disembodied
Some androgynous figures
No weeping, just yearning
Linear bodies twisting around one another

20. Antonio Correggio, Assumption of the Virgin, 1526-1530, fresco, Parma Cathedral

21. View of the sky with hundreds of figures flying overhead in concentric rings
Weightlessness of the bodies
Clouds appear as soft and elusive masses

22. Saints at lowest level; second level has the Virgin escorted to heaven with angels; celestial glory at top with Christ waiting to receive his mother
Glowing colors set in a blazing setting that prefigures the Baroque

23. Parmigianino, Madonna of the Long Neck, 1535, oil on wood, Uffizi, Florence

24. Small head, long neck, delicate gesture, graceful hand
Crowding of heads on left
Elongated and unattached limbs

25. Column appears to be singular at top but descends to a row of columns at bottom
Small figure at the base strangely out of proportion; role in the painting the painting uncertain
Pose of Mary and Jesus reminiscent of the Pieta’

26. Agnolo Bronzino, Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time, 1546, National Gallery, London

27. Commissioned by Cosimo de’ Medici of Florence as a gift to Francis I of France
Complicated allegorical structure that invites a multiplicity of meanings
Cupid kisses his mother Venus, but has his eye on her golden apple; he rests on a pillow, indicating his idleness
Venus responds to Cupid, but removes an arrow behind his back from his quiver

28. Folly throws flowers at the couple
Masks are falseness; doves are love
Fraud or Vanity has a beautiful face and offers a honeycomb, but underneath she is an animal and has a poisonous lizard in her other hand; her hands seem to be reversed
Envy on the left is green; has recently been symbolically interpreted as syphilis

29. Fury or Truth at top left; time at top right, exposing all
Has been interpreted as a morality piece about syphilis
Complex imagery and poses
Figures in a congested composition pushed to the forefront of the picture plane

30. Jacopo Tintoretto, The Last Supper, 1594, oil on canvas, Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome

31. Christ in the center, yet powerful diagonals pull the eye into the distance
Elongated figures
Light reveals flying upside down angels

32. Light casts long shadows
Many details of everyday life dominate painting
No action, no announcement of betrayal, nameless apostles, insignificant Judas

33. Christ gives the Eucharist to Saint Peter
Point of view was originally from an angle which would have given it more balance.

34. Innovations of Mannerist Sculpture
Freed the viewer from looking only at the frontal position such as Michelangelo and Donatello used.
Mannerists, like Bologna, make us move around the work to appreciate it.
The Mannerist painters used elongation of figures that transferred to sculpture as well.

35. Innovations of Mannerist Sculpture
Intertwining figures have their legs and arms inexplicably intermeshed
Disembodied hands appear, sometimes floating space in a mix of bodies
Negative space, the anathema of High Renaissance sculpture, is the hallmark of Mannerism
Compositions are often crowded, inviting the viewer to examine the details to understand the whole.

36. Giovanni da Bologna, Abduction of the Sabine Women, 1583, marble, Florence

37. Title of the work given later
Sculpted as a set piece
Spiral movement
Must be seen in the round
Negative space

38. References to Laocoon
It had been thought that the ancients sculpted monumental works from one block of stone; Renaissance artists discovered this was untrue; Bologna wanted to surpass the ancients by carving from one block
Symbolism of the Medici (young man) taking Florence (the woman) from the preceding government (the old man)

39. Classicizing Trend in Late-Fifteenth Century Art and Architecture
High Renaissance painting never faded in the sixteenth century, despite Mannerist art.
Veronese continued to work on grand compositions with majestic architectural elements of size.
Courtly gestures and theatrical elements dominate paintings.

40. Classicizing Trend in Late-Fifteenth Century Art and Architecture
Mannerist architects, like Romano, delighted the senses by breaking the academic code.
Palladio revitalized classical forms (Villa Rotunda)
Palladio’s San Giorgio Maggiore, is more Mannerist in its intersection of Pediments and columns

41. Paolo Veronese, Christ in the House of Levi, 1573, oil on canvas, Academy, Venice

42. Originally titled Last Supper but name was changed because it was deemed inappropriate for a sacred scene
Mary and Christ lost in a vast array of miscellaneous figures

43. Sumptuous setting; architecture overwhelms, courtly gestures, brocaded costumes

44. Andrea Palladio, Villa Rotunda, 1566-1570, Vincenza, Italy

45. Building has four identical facades, each with a different view
Interior has rotunda, with four larger rooms alternating with four smaller spaces to allow for more intimate settings

46. When building viewed from afar, no matter from what angle, it looks complete
Used as a working farm, family estate, villa retreat
Villa appears as a mini temple; perhaps a residence of the Muses; ideal nature of the central plan evokes the ancients

47. Symmetrical ground plan
Low round Roman-style dome, not the domes of the Renaissance
Originally the dome had an oculus, like the Pantheon, now glazed

48. Building set on a high podium; pediments dominate doors and windows

49. Andrea Palladio, San Giorgio Maggiore, 1565, Venice

50. Interlocking pediments and columns
High pedestals for columns
More Mannerist than the Villa Rotunda, two temple facades intersect
Clearly lit interior

51. Test 1. The artist of this work is A. Tintoretto B. Porta C. Veronese
D Bologna

52. 2. This work was carved from one piece of marble because
The artist wanted to challenge the ancients
There was only one piece of marble left in the quarry
Marble was the approved medium of the ancients
The cost of marble had gone up

53. 3. Which ancient work of sculpture inspired this composition?
Venus de Milo
Laocoon
Discus Thrower
Nike of Samothrace

54. 4. Mannerist paintings can be characterized by
Harmony
Symmetry
Rich colors
artifice

55. 5. A new type of painting introduced in the Mannerist period is the
Landscape
Mythological painting
Still life
abstract

56. 6. Correggio’s ceiling painting at Parma Cathedral is different than Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling in that Correggio’s is
Not divided up by architectural features
Not high overhead
Of a secular subject matter
Not three-dimensional

57. 7. This building has a Mannerist influence in the
Classical forms used in an irregular pattern
Dome that is low and wide
Pediment that should be placed higher on the façade
Fact that there is no
Greek temple behind the building

58. 8. This building was built
For wedding receptions
For the pope’s private apartments
To house horsed in a stable
For religious services

59. 9. This building is dramatically located in the
Mediterranean Sea
Grand Canal in Venice
Tiber River in Rome
Nile

60. 10. Tintoretto’s Last Supper is different than previous renditions of this Biblical story in that
Christ is announcing that someone will betray him
Judas is at the far side of the table
The main drama is diffused by an elaborate grouping of subsidiary figures
Tintoretto painted it in a religious building

61. Essay
Andrea Palladio said in his Four Books on Architecture, “Guided by a natural inclination, I gave myself up in my most early years to the study of architecture; And as it was always my opinion, that the ancient Romans, as in many other things, so in building well, vastly excelled all those who have been since their time, I proposed to myself Vitruvius for my master and guide, who is the only ancient writer of this art, and set myself to search in to the relics of all the ancient edifices, that , in spite of time and cruelty of the Barbarians, yet remain; and finding them much more worthy of observation, than at first I had imagined, I began very minutely with the utmost diligence to measure every one of their parts…”
Choose and identify a building designed by Palladio. Discuss how this building illustrates the quotation. How is the work inspired by Roman Architecture and how does it deviate from it? Use one side of a sheet of paper to write your essay