Mannerism In Renaissance Art

Introduction

Conventionally, the Renaissance period is said to begin in 1490’s promoting the idea of order, balance, proportion and symmetry. The word “renaissance” came from the Italian term “rinascita” which means “rebirth”. This era was considered to be of great ingenuity and brilliance, because even the minor renaissance artist produced works that were beyond fascinating and are still praised for the harmony and peace of their design and technique. The classical principles of charm, serenity, composure and consonance reached to the peaks of perfection. By the end of renaissance period, the young artists were mostly subject to a setback. It seemed that they had little or nothing of substance to accomplish. They however, pursued new objectives and approaches which eventually gave birth to Mannerism.

Mannerism is the period of European Art that surfaced immediately after the Italian Renaissance came to its end during 1520. The Mannerist era continued until 1580 after which the Baroque style began to takeover. The word Mannerism has its roots in the Italian word “maniera” which means “manner or style”. Vasari, a mannerist artist, elucidated this era as “la maniera moderna” which means “modern style. The mannerism artist advocated work that inflamed tension, emotion and dominance. They

Their work depicted rationality and logic as the renaissance architects did not believed in the anti-humanistic and anti-classical works of art which was later to evolve. On the other hand, Mannerist typically preferred creating figures and images using twisted and distorted poses which made it evident that their work was characterized by deformation of elements like balance, space and proportion. Mannerist paintings usually appeared out of proportion and demonstrated unusual use of scale, because of which the figures usually had elongated neck, torsos and other