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Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High

Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when the Baroque style began to

replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century.[1]

Stylistically, Mannerism encompasses a variety of approaches influenced by, and reacting to, the

harmonious ideals associated with artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and early

Michelangelo. While High Renaissance explored harmonious ideals, Mannerism wanted to go a step

further.[2] Mannerism is notable for its intellectual sophistication as well as its artificial (as opposed

to naturalistic) qualities.[3] Mannerism favours compositional tension and instability rather than the

balance and clarity of earlier Renaissance painting. Mannerism in literature and music is notable for

its highly florid style and intellectual sophistication.[4]

The definition of Mannerism, and the phases within it, continues to be the subject of debate among

art historians. For example, some scholars have applied the label to certain early modern forms of

literature (especially poetry) and music of the 16th and 17th centuries. The term is also used to refer

to some Late Gothic painters working in northern Europe from about 1500 to 1530, especially the

Antwerp Manneristsa group unrelated to the Italian movement. Mannerism also has been applied

by analogy to the Silver Age of Latin literature.

The word mannerism derives from the Italian maniera, meaning "style" or "manner". Like the English

word "style", maniera can either indicate a specific type of style (a beautiful style, an abrasive style)

or indicate an absolute that needs no qualification (someone "has style").[5] In the second edition of

his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1568), Giorgio Vasari used

maniera in three different contexts: to discuss an artist's manner or method of working; to describe

a personal or group style, such as the term maniera greca to refer to the Byzantine style or simply to

the maniera of Michelangelo; and to affirm a positive judgment of artistic quality.[6] Vasari was also

a Mannerist artist, and he described the period in which he worked as "la maniera moderna", or the

"modern style"

By the end of the High Renaissance, young artists experienced a crisis.[2] It looked like everything

that could be achieved was already achieved. No more difficulties, technical or otherwise, remained

to be solved. The detailed knowledge of anatomy, light, physiognomy and the way in which humans

register emotion in expression and gesture, the innovative use of the human form in figurative

composition, the use of the subtle gradation of tone, all were near perfection. The young artists

needed to find a new goal, and were looking for new approaches. This was the moment when

Mannerism started to develop.[2] Depending on the historical account you credit, Mannerism

developed between 1510 and 1520 in either Florence,[12] Rome, or both cities simultaneously.[13]

Origins and role models[edit source | editbeta]

Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects This period has beendescribed as a 'natural extension'[4] of the art of Andrea del Sarto, Michelangelo, and Raphael.

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Michelangelo from early age has developed a style of his own, a deeply original style which was

greatly admired first, than often copied and imitated by his fellow artists of his time.[4] One of the

qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his terribilit, a sense of awe-inspiring grandeur,

and it was the attempts of subsequent artists to imitate.[4] Michelangelo's impassioned and highly

personal style was thus learned by the other artists copying the works of the master, learning by

copying was a standard way that students learn to paint and sculpt. His Sistine Chapel ceiling

provided examples for other artists to follow, in particular the figures of ignudi and of the Libyan

Sibyl, his vestibule to the Laurentian Library, in the figures on his Medici tombs, and above all in his

Last Judgment. The later Michelangelo was one of the great role model[4] of Mannerism. This was

noticed by Michelangelo himself who might have been annoyed sometimes by this. Young artist

broke in into the house of Michelangelo and stole drawings from him.[14] In his book Lives of the

Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Giorgio Vasari noted that Michelangelo stated

once: Those who are followers can never pass by whom they follow.

Early mannerism[edit source | editbeta]

Jacopo Pontormo, Entombment, 1528; Santa Felicit, Florence

The early Mannerists in Florenceespecially the students of Andrea del Sarto: Jacopo da Pontormo

and Rosso Fiorentinoare notable for elongated forms, precariously balanced poses, a collapsed

perspective, irrational settings, and theatrical lighting. Parmigianino (a student of Correggio) and

Giulio Romano (Raphaels head assistant) were moving in similarly stylized aesthetic directions in

Rome. These artists had matured under the influence of the High Renaissance, and their style has

been characterized as a reaction or exaggerated extension of it. Instead of studying nature directly,younger artists began studying Hellenistic sculpture and paintings of masters past. Therefore, this

style is often identified as "anti-classical,*15+ yet at the time it was considered a natural progression

from the High Renaissance. The earliest experimental phase of Mannerism, known for its "anti-

classical" forms, lasted until about 1540 or 1550.[13][page needed] Marcia B. Hall, professor of art

history at Temple University, notes in her book After Raphael that Raphael's premature death

marked the beginning of Mannerism in Rome.

The group of words with the root "Roman" in the various European languages, such as romance and

Romanesque, has a complicated history, but by the middle of the 18th century "romantic" in English

and romantique in French were both in common use as adjectives of praise for natural phenomenasuch as views and sunsets, in a sense close to modern English usage but without the implied sexual

element. The application of the term to literature first became common in Germany, where the

circle around the Schlegel brothers, critics August and Friedrich, began to speak of romantische

Poesie ("romantic poetry") in the 1790s, contrasting it with "classic" but in terms of spirit rather than

merely dating. Friedrich Schlegel wrote in his Dialogue on Poetry (1800), "I seek and find the

romantic among the older moderns, in Shakespeare, in Cervantes, in Italian poetry, in that age of

chivalry, love and fable, from which the phenomenon and the word itself are derived."[17] In both

French and German the closeness of the adjective to roman, meaning the fairly new literary form of

the novel, had some effect on the sense of the word in those languages. The use of the word did not

become general very quickly, and was probably spread more widely in France by its persistent use by

Madame de Stal in her De L'Allemagne (1813), recounting her travels in Germany.[18] In England

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Wordsworth wrote in a preface to his poems of 1815 of the "romantic harp" and "classic lyre",[18]

but in 1820 Byron could still write, perhaps slightly disingenuously, "I perceive that in Germany, as

well as in Italy, there is a great struggle about what they call "Classical" and "Romantic", terms which

were not subjects of classification in England, at least when I left it four or five years ago".[19] It is

only from the 1820s that Romanticism certainly knew itself by its name, and in 1824 the Acadmie

franaise took the wholly ineffective step of issuing a decree condemning it in literature.[20]