Mannerism
Description
Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, when the Baroque style largely replaced it. Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century. Read more ↗
Key Artists
Jacopo da Pontormo
Pioneering Florentine master of early Mannerism whose radical compositions rejected classical harmony in favor of intense emotional anxiety, compressed space, and acid-bright palette.
Parmigianino (Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola)
Central figure of High Mannerism celebrated for attenuated grace, elongated human proportions, and sophisticated courtly elegance.
Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosimo)
Official court painter to Cosimo I de' Medici who perfected the cold, sculptural, and aristocratic Mannerist portrait style.
Rosso Fiorentino
Florentine rebel who introduced angular, shocking expressiveness to religious painting and later co-founded the School of Fontainebleau in France.
El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos)
Late Mannerist visionary working in Toledo, Spain, who transformed the style's spatial distortions and elongated figures into profound, spiritual ecstasy.
Benvenuto Cellini
Preeminent Mannerist goldsmith and sculptor whose elaborate virtuosity and dynamic poses epitomized courtly luxury.
Famous Artworks
Fun Facts
When Parmigianino presented his 'Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror' to Pope Clement VII in Rome in 1524, the pontiff and his court were so astonished by his ability to paint the optical curvature on a wooden hemisphere that they hailed the twenty-one-year-old artist as the rebirth of Raphael.
↗ Source: britannica.com
The term 'Mannerism' originates from Giorgio Vasari's sixteenth-century use of the Italian word 'maniera' (meaning style or stylishness), which praised artists for possessing effortless grace, technical virtuosity, and sophisticated artificiality.
↗ Source: britannica.com