Mannerism Paintings

Mannerist paintings developed in sixteenth-century Italy and spread through other European artistic centers. Elongated figures, intricate poses, unexpected color, and compressed or unsettled space give familiar subjects a deliberately stylized form. Parmigianino's Madonna with the Long Neck makes proportion and balance central to its sacred composition, with the Virgin's extended figure set beside closely grouped attendants. Rosso Fiorentino's portraits and religious pictures use angular forms and unusual relationships of color, offering another approach to the expressive possibilities of the figure. His later work on the royal château at Fontainebleau brought Italian artistic practice into a French courtly setting. Religious, courtly, and private commissions thus provided different purposes and surroundings for these experiments. The term describes a range of choices, including responses to the figures of Michelangelo, rather than one workshop or a uniform treatment of every subject.