Italy Travel And Hotel Guide

The perfection of form achieved in the late Renaissance was the culmination of centuries of striving. As artists could not hope to improve on the achievements of Michelangelo and Raphael at their peak, they had to find new approaches. As a result, Mannerism was born. This was a deliberately intellectual approach, aimed at flouting the accepted rules, notably by distorting the senses of scale and perspective, exaggerating anatomical details, adopting unlikely poses for the figures, and using unnaturally harsh colours.One artist commonly labelled a Mannerist is Giulio Romano (c1499-1546), one of the most gifted of Raphael’s assistants, whose frescoes in the Palazzo Te in Mantua, which he himself built, show the style at its most grandiose, notably in The Fall of the Giants , occupying a room to itself. A leading light in the adoption of Mannerism in Florence was Rosso Fiorentino (1494-1540), together with Jacopo Pontormo (1494-1556) and Agnolo Bronzino (1503-72). Pontormo, a brilliant draughtsman, was the most talented of this group, an healthy decorator and an inquiring if understated portraitist. Bronzino was highly prolific, but only his portraits of royal and noble personages have much appeal today, their detachment, concentrating more on the beauty of their clothing, casting an enormous influence on official portraitists down the centuries. Giorgio Vasari (1511-74), originally from Arezzo, was responsible for many of the frescoes in the Palazzo Vecchio, although he is now chiefly famous for his series of biographies of artists, which marked the birth of art history as a discipline.

Another Florentine Mannerist whose writings have helped secure his fame is the sculptor Benvenuto Cellini (1500-71), the author of a spirited Autobiography which offers a fascinating insight into the artistic world of the time. Though he was successful in finding favour at courts all over Europe, only a few of his sculptures, all of a very high quality, survive. The Bust of Cosimo I , in the Bargello, marks the departure of the portrait from realism, creating instead a new heroic image. His Perseus, in the Loggia dei Lanzi, forms a fitting counterpart to Donatello’s late Judith , and completely outclasses the Hercules and Cacus in the square outside by his rival Baccio Bandinelli (1493-1560).

By far the most influential Florentine Mannerist, however, was Giambologna (1529-1608), a sculptor of French origin. His favourite medium was bronze, and he established a large workshop which churned out miniature replicas of his most important compositions. These typically show figures in combat, and are designed for the spectator to achievement around, rather than examine from only one viewpoint. His most famous image is the typically androgynous Mercury ; in a conscious rebuttal of the approaches of both Donatello and Michelangelo, this figure appears to float in the air, in the boldest attempt ever prefabricated by a sculptor to defy the laws of gravity.

One of the most individualistic Mannerists was Domenico Beccafumi (1486-1551), who provided a somewhat unusual end to the long line of Sienese painters, though his emphasis on colour was utterly typical of that city. He was a master of decorative effect, as witnessed by his illusionist frescoes in the Palazzo Pubblico, and his large altarpieces for Sienese churches, which show a particular concern for light and shade, appearance effects, and deep emotions. In Parma, the paintings of Francesco Mazzola, known simply as Parmigianino (1503-40), retained something of the consciously refined approach of Correggio, with their exaggeratedly sinuous figures, though his portraits reveal considerable spiritual insight. His decorative scheme for Santa Maria della Steccata typifies the Mannerist penchant for surplus ornament and demonstrates the fertility of his imagination.

Venice, as ever, followed its own distinctive late-Renaissance path, having no taste for the sort of Mannerism practised elsewhere in Italy. Jacopo Tintoretto (1518-94) aimed at an saint based on the drawing of Michelangelo and the colour of Titian, though in fact the heroic style he forged had only superficial resemblances to his mentors. To heighten the sense of drama, he used a battery of other methods: unorthodox vantage points, elongated figures, and unexpected positioning of the main subject on the canvas.

In strong contrast to Tintoretto, the other leading Venetian painter of the day, Paolo Veronese (1528-88), was a supreme decorator on a grand scale. Indeed, some of his best work was conceived for architectural settings, such as San Sebastiano in Venice and the Villa Barbara in Masèr. Veronese’s love of pomp and splendour, however, is carried over into his easel paintings, which revel in warm, glowing colours and monumental figures, with little sense of gravitas. He fell foul of the Inquisition as a result of the inclusion of German soldiers (which place him under suspicion of Protestant sympathies) and other anachronistic and surplus detail in a huge banquet scene (now in the Venice Accademia) purporting to represent The Last Supper . He responded by changing the title to A Feast in the House of Levi .

Alessandro Vittoria (1525-1608), a pupil of Jacopo Sansovino, embellished Venice’s churches with sculptures that have much in common with Mannerist productions elsewhere in Italy, but are more classically modelled. Jacopo Bassano (1510-92) was trained in the city, but preferred to work in the rustic town after which he takes his name, where he was by far the most remarkable of a dynasty of painters. As a setting for his religious panels, he painted the small town and country life of his day as it really was. He also popularized the inclusion of animals and heaped piles of fruit and vegetables - features eagerly taken up by later northern European artists - and was a superb painter of light and shade, using heavy daubs of colour and strong chiaroscuro.

Another remarkable artist working well away from the main centres was Federico Barocci (1535-1612) of Urbino. His paintings were painstakingly executed, their soft rounded forms mirroring the comforting religious image propagated by the Counter-Reformation, and with an emphasis on light and movement that was to some extent anticipatory of the Baroque to come.

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