The Anti-Mannerist Style
Notes taken from Walter Friedlaender, Mannerism and Anti-Mannerism in Italian Painting (New York: Schocken, 1965), pages 47-55
n.b. 'organic' metaphors used to describe style: "...diagnosed as
symptoms of a disease..."; exaggerations of its original nature"; "signs of
overbreeding, and hence sterility"
The term maniera - "making by hand" "mode" "style" "manner"
"The [sculptor] needs no model from nature, but follows a specific prototype,
or the established precepts of a school. The mechanical attitude engenders
conformity or, in other words, "manner".
Unoriginal - repeats manually something predetermined
When this empty stereotyping utilizes forms or formulae inherited from a style
already abstract, anormative, and remote from nature, the result must
necessarily be something merely decorative or ornamental.
For Walter Friedlaender, mannerism is 'anticlasscial'
two phases of mannerism
- 1520-1550 ("noble, pure, idealistic, abstract")
- 1550-1580 (transformation of first phase into a 'manner' - became di
maniera)
An "extraordinary decline in quality" since High Renaissance
'Reform' involved returning to High Renaissance principles ["grandfather
law"
]
"...the mannered Mannerism of the second phase, against whose shallowness, even
in spiritual matters, the reform which set in around 1580 was directed."
Notes on the Council of Trent
The Council of Trent and the Arts
Council of Trent, last session, December 1561 - defined the role assigned to the arts
Religious imagery was admitted and welcomed as a support to religious teaching
One passage of the decree demands that 'by means of the stories of the mysteries of our Redemption portrayed by paintings or other representations,the people be instructed and confirmed in the habit of remembering, and
continually revolving in mind the articles of faith'.
Recommendations of various writers may be summarized under three headings:
- clarity, simplicity, and intelligibility
- realistic interpretation (unveiled truth, accuracy, decorum)
- emotional stimulus to piety
'PC' images ('piously correct') are meant to:
- appeal to the emotions of the faithful
- support or even transcend the spoken word
Most of the artists working roughly between l550 and 1590 practised a style
that was
- formalistic
- anti-classical
- anti-naturalistic
- a style of stereotyped formulas
virtuosity of execution and highly decorative surface qualities go with
compositional decentralization and spatial and colouristic complexities
deliberate physical and psychic ambiguities puzzle the beholder
intricacies of handling are often matched by the intricacies of content.
many pictures and fresco cycles of the period are obscure and esoteric
little power to stir religious emotions in the mass of the faithful.
lacked clarity, realism, and emotional intensity.
The Beginnings of Baroque
ARTH 344