Mannerist Art

After Raphael died was when the Mannerist art was then created. It is the end of perfection, harmony and balance that was in the 15^th century renaissance art. Now in the 16^th century renaissance art was created to look more stylized and not realistic. Mannerist art was created to look more artificial and not true to life. There are people that are elongated and disproportionate. For instance the painting “Allegory with Venus and Cupid” by Bronzino has all the characteristics of Mannerist art, along with the painting “Entombment” by Pontormo.

            Bronzino’s Allegory with Venus and Cupid is a very chaotic painting with many different figures. Everything in the painting seems to be tilted upward. Venus is in the center and her pose looks so unnatural. She is rather larger than the other figures. It seems as if she is about to fall over because her weight is all shifted on her right knee and her body pointed upward, she looks very unstable. Cupids pose looks also unreal, it looks like all his weight is on that pink pillow and his body is twisted in a way that make him look elongated. I also think that his head looks like its not even connected to his body, or that is neck is so elongated. You can’t really tell because Venus’s arm is covering that area. There is also a detail in his foot that is mimicking the dove in the bottom left corner they are not touching. Cupid and Venus look as if they might drop and fall out of the picture plane, which is another characteristic of Mannerist art. Mannerist art is very chaotic and it looks like the other figures in the paintings are just shoved into the canvas. The background looks very cramped. The figures look as if they are just placed randomly into the canvas. Venus looks somewhat graceful with her hand reaching around Cupid and taking that arrow out of his wing. This painting is kind of erotic because Cupid is said to be Venus’s son. In the painting he is seen grabbing her breast, and looks like they are about to have a passionate kiss. In the painting if you look closely you can see her tongue coming out of her mouth while they are embracing each other.  Behind the playful child you see a serpent body with a costume like head of a girl. There is also a woman on the left that is screaming in terror, some say it’s over jealousy. Both the serpent and the screaming woman are giving warning to the inappropriate things that are happening with Venus and Cupid.

             Pontormo’s Entombment shows characteristics of Mannerist art. There are people in the painting that are crammed into the canvas, elongated figures, and a use of unnatural color uses. This painting is very large so standing at eye level you only see the bottom portion of the painting, but once you look up you the figures. Some of those figures look as if they are going to fall right out of the painting and usually would give viewers an uneasy feeling. In earlier renaissance art they had pyramidal and triangular compositions. Mannerist art is more chaotic so they don’t have a set up of composition, as in early renaissance art there was triangular and pyramidal compositions. In this painting there seems to be an oval or round composition. You can see that the figures heads are moving around in a circle while in the middle of that circle is empty space with just arms and hands. With there being no pyramidal or triangular shape to this composition it is much harder to find the subject matter.  In the painting there is a guy in a strange unnatural crouch, he is holding the dead weight of Christ. He is standing on his tiptoes and in real life I think it would be very difficult to hold a dead man while on your tiptoes. Also the color of this man’s skin is very unnatural because he is a bright pink and his stomach is a light blue color. As you look at the man crouching you can see that his neck is a little elongated and the other person in blue, holding Christ, also has a disproportionate body. These again are other characteristics of Mannerist art.

Some people may say that Mannerist art is elegant with the curves of the elongated figures and the lines that sweep throughout the paintings. But others may say that it is disturbing and makes the figures look very strange. Both of these paintings show that people are elongated and that takes away from the perfection of people. Also in these paintings there is no order to the compositions they are chaotic and crammed. Many of the Mannerist art are chaotic and don’t make sense to viewers. Mannerist art moves far away from the 15^th century renaissance art it has taken away the harmony, balance or perfection.