acteristic of Mannerism’s early phase in painting. Christ’s descent
from the cross and subsequent entombment had frequently been de-
picted in art (see “The Life of Jesus in Art,” Chapter 11, pages
296–297, or pages xxvi–xxvii in Volume II), and Pontormo exploited
the familiarity that 16th-century viewers would have had by playing
off their expectations. For example, he omitted from the painting
both the cross and Christ’s tomb, so that scholars continue to debate
whether he meant to represent the Descent from the Cross or the En-
tombment.And instead of presenting the action as occurring across
the perpendicular picture plane, as artists such as Raphael and Rogier
van der Weyden (FIG. 20-8) had done in their paintings of these
episodes from Christ’s Passion, Pontormo rotated the conventional
figural groups along a vertical axis. As a result, the Virgin Mary falls
back (away from the viewer) as she releases her dead son’s hand. Un-
like High Renaissance artists, who had concentrated their masses in
the center of the painting, Pontormo left a void. This emptiness ac-
centuates the grouping of hands that fill that hole, calling attention to
the void—symbolic of loss and grief. The artist enhanced the paint-
ing’s ambiguity with the curiously anxious glances the figures cast in
all directions. (The bearded young man at the upper right who looks
out at the viewer is probably a self-portrait of Pontormo.) Athletic
bending and twisting characterize many of the figures, with distor-tions (for example, the torso of the fore-
ground figure bends in an anatomically im-
possible way), elastic elongation of the limbs,
and heads rendered as uniformly small and
oval. The contrasting colors, primarily light
blues and pinks, add to the dynamism and
complexity of the work. The painting repre-
sents a departure from the balanced, harmo-
niously structured compositions of the High
Renaissance.PARMIGIANINOGirolamo Francesco
Maria Mazzola of Parma, known as Pa r m i -
gianino(1503–1540), achieved in his best-
known work,Madonna with the Long Neck
(FIG. 22-43), the elegant stylishness that was
a principal aim of Mannerism. In Parmigia-
nino’s hands, this traditional, usually sedate,
religious subject became a picture of exquisite
grace and precious sweetness. The Madonna’s
small oval head, her long and slender neck,
the otherworldly attenuation and delicacy of
her hand, and the sinuous, swaying elonga-
tion of her frame—all are marks of the aristo-
cratic, sumptuously courtly taste of a later
phase of Mannerism. Parmigianino amplified
this elegance by expanding the Madonna’s form as viewed from head
to toe. On the left stands a bevy of angelic creatures, melting with
emotions as soft and smooth as their limbs. On the right, the artist
included a line of columns without capitals and an enigmatic figure
with a scroll, whose distance from the foreground is immeasurable
and ambiguous—the antithesis of rational Renaissance perspectival
diminution of size with distance.
Although the elegance and sophisticated beauty of the painting
are due in large part to the Madonna’s attenuated limbs, that exag-
geration is not solely decorative in purpose.Madonna with the Long
Neck takes its subject from a simile in medieval hymns that com-
pared the Virgin’s neck to a great ivory tower or column, such as that
which Parmigianino depicted to the right of the Madonna. Thus, the
work contains religious meaning in addition to the power derived
from its beauty alone.BRONZINOVenus, Cupid, Folly, and Time (FIG. 22-44), by
Agnolo di Cosimo, called Bronzino(1503–1572), also displays all
the chief features of Mannerist painting. A pupil of Pontormo,
Bronzino was a Florentine and painter to the first grand duke of
Tuscany, Cosimo I de’ Medici (r. 1537–1574). In this painting,
which Cosimo I commissioned as a gift for King Francis I of France,22-44Bronzino,Venus, Cupid, Folly, and
Time,ca. 1546. Oil on wood, 5 1 4 81 – 4 .
National Gallery, London.
In this painting of Cupid fondling his mother
Venus, Bronzino demonstrated a fondness for
learned allegories with lascivious undertones.
As in many Mannerist paintings, the meaning
here is ambiguous.Mannerism 6131 ft.22-42ABECCA-
FUMI,Fall of the
Rebel Angels,
ca. 1524.
22-43A
PARMIGIANINO,
Self-Portrait
in a Convex
Mirror,1524.