Mannerist elements are already present in some of
Raphael's
later paintings done in Rome, notably the “Transfiguration”
(1517–20; Vatican Museum). In the period from 1515 to 1524 the
Florentine painters
Rosso
Fiorentino and
Jacopo da
Pontormo broke away from Renaissance classicism and
evolved an expressive, emotionally agitated style in their religious
compositions. Among the most notable of these early Mannerist works
are
Pontormo's
Visdomini altarpiece (1518; Church of S. Michele Visdomini,
Florence) and
Rosso's
“Deposition” (1521; Pinacoteca Comunale, Volterra). In the early
1520s
Rosso
journeyed to Rome, where he joined the artists
Giulio
Romano, Perino del Vaga,
and Polidoro da Caravaggio, who had all
been followers of
Raphael in his work for the Vatican.
The Mannerist style completely emerged in the paintings of these
artists as well as in those of
Parmigianino. The latter's “Madonna with the Long
Neck” (1534; Uffizi, Florence),
Rosso's
“Dead Christ with Angels” (c. 1526; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston),
and
Pontormo's
“Deposition” (1525–28; churchof Sta. Felicitą, Florence) are
preeminent works of Mannerism's maturity.
Michelangelo's huge fresco “The Last Judgment”
(1533–41; Sistine Chapel, Vatican) shows strong Mannerist tendencies
in its agitated composition, formless and indeterminate space, and
in the tortured poses and exaggerated musculature of its bunches of
nude figures.
The sophisticated Mannerism that developed in Rome before 1527
became the chief formative influence on the styles of a number of
younger Italian painters who were active during the 1530s, '40s, and
'50s. Among them were
Giorgio Vasari, Daniele da Volterra,
Francesco Salviati,
Domenico
Beccafumi, Federico Zuccari,
Pellegrino Tibaldi, and most notably Il
Bronzino, who was the pupil of
Pontormo
and who became the most important Mannerist painter in Florence at
this time. Meanwhile, Mannerism had begun to spread outside Italy;
Rosso
took the style to France in 1530 and was followed there two years
later by
Francesco
Il Primaticcio, who evolved an important French
variant of Mannerism in his decorations done at the French royal
court at Fontainebleau. Mannerism was transplanted and disseminated
throughout central and northern Europe around mid-century through
large numbers of engravings of Italian paintings and through the
visits of northern artists to Rome to study.
Bartholomaeus Spranger,
Hendrik Goltzius, and
Hans von Aachen became important
Mannerist painters. Although the Dutch cities of Haarlem and
Amsterdam became centres of the new style, the most ambitious
patronage was practiced at Prague by the Emperor Rudolf II;
Spranger
and others who worked for Rudolf evolved a rather
bizarre and exotic Mannerism that occasionally degenerated into the
merely grotesque and inexplicable.
In sculpture, the serpentine complexity of
Michelangelo's late sculptures, as epitomized in the
sinuously spiraling form of his “Victory” (1532–34; Palazzo Vecchio,
Florence), dominated Mannerist aspirations in this medium. The
sculptors
Bartolommeo Ammannati,
Benvenuto Cellini,
and, most importantly, Giambologna became the principal
practitioners of Mannerism with their graceful and complexly posed
statues.
Mannerism retained a high level of international popularity until
the paintings of Annibale Carracci and of Caravaggio
around 1600 brought the problematic style to an end and ushered in
the long ascendancy of the Baroque. Mannerism was for long afterward
looked down upon as a decadent and anarchic style that simply marked
a degeneration of High Renaissance artistic production. But in the
20th century the style came to be appreciated anew for its technical
bravura, elegance, and polish. Mannerism's spiritual intensity, its
complex and intellectual aestheticism, its experimentation in form,
and the persistent psychological anxiety manifested in it made the
style attractive and interesting to the modern temperament, which
saw affinities between it and modern expressionist tendencies in
art.
Encyclopaedia Britannica
