Week 8: Mannerism

Mannerism Definition:

• The term derives from maniera, meaning “style” or “manner,” which, in turns, comes from mano, hand

• Art is something fashioned by human hand

• Mannerism is associated with artifice: art is not “natural”

• Ambiguous space

• Elongated or distorted forms

• Departure from conventions

• Unusual representations of traditional themes

  
  

Madonna dal Collo Lungo (Madonna with Long Neck)

• Idealism, not realism

• Art as a teacher, not nature

• influenced by high renaissance masters, like Michelangelo

• she is large

• head and toes small

• no respect of human anotomy

• bones seem soft

• body creates diamond shape

• Jesus is elongated

• Jesus arm looks dislocated

• trying to show beauty → idealism

• figure /prophet holding a scroll bottom right, standing underneath Mary

Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time (Allegory of Lust)

• birth of the idea of an artists being recognizable through their artistic style

• allegorical

• ambigious

• Venus son is Cupid, incest

• Venus holding an pple (Paris gave the fairest an apple)

• Venus stole Cupids arrow

• Mask bottom in right and left corners

• child about to thorw something, bells on ankle

• man screaming

• hour glass, life passing

• Chronos, god of time

• head of girl, body of snake, holding a honey comb

Giovanni da Bologna, Rape of the Sabine

• looks ahead to Baroque

• roman mythology

• central axis

• multiple viewpoints

• dramatic figures in motion

• Giovanni worked for the Medici family

• 3 human figures intertwined

• grace, full of curves

• older person defeated/ cany do anything to stop it from happening

• city named Sabine, Rome needed women to repopulate, Sabine said no. SO Rome kidnapped the woman Sabine, hence the name

Portrait of the Artist’s Sisters and Brother

• woman artist

• lack of renown, however:

• social conventions

• restricted education

• guild rules excluded women

• children, potential artists lived with the artists, but not girls

• if you did not have a guild, it was hard to find commissions