MANNERISM & BAROQUE What role has abstraction played in the art of the

Mannerist and Baroque periods?

MannerismMannerism is a period of European

art that emerged from the later years

of the Italian High Renaissance

around 1520. It lasted until about

1580 in Italy, when the Baroque

style began to replace it, but

Northern Mannerism continued

into the early 17th century.

Michelangelo - Creation of Adam

• Mannerist art movement first appeared in Florence and Rome, and was a style that rejected the Renaissance period in favour of a more emotional approach to art with a sometimes distorted point of view.

Mannerism

• Stylistically, Mannerism encompasses a variety of approaches influenced by, and reacting to, the harmonious ideals associated with artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and early Michelangelo.

• While High Renaissance explored harmonious ideals, Mannerism wanted to go a step further. Mannerism is notable for its intellectual sophistication as well as its artificial (as opposed to naturalistic) qualities.

• Mannerism favours compositional tension and instability rather than the balance and clarity of earlier Renaissance painting. Mannerism in literature and music is notable for its highly florid style and intellectual sophistication.

"Venus, Cupid, and Time"

by BronzinoRenaissance art was natural, graceful,

balanced and harmonious, the art of

Mannerism was quite different. While

technically masterful, Mannerist

compositions were full of clashing colours,

disquieting figures with abnormally

elongated limbs, (often torturous-looking)

emotion and bizarre themes that combined

Classicism, Christianity and mythology.

"Composite Heads"

Giuseppe Arcimboldo became a student to the

renowned painter Leonardo Da Vinci. Challenged the

realistic approach.

BAROQUE"Rough or imperfect pearl"

Baroque

• Similar to mannerism, the Baroque is a period of artistic style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, architecture, literature, dance, and music.

• The style began around 1600 in Rome, Italy and spread to most of Europe.

About Baroque

• The Roman Catholic Church after the Council of Trent (1545–63) adopted a propagandistic stance in which art was to serve as a means of extending and stimulating the public’s faith in the church.

• To this end the church adopted a conscious artistic program whose art products would make an overtly emotional and sensory appeal to the faithful.

• The Baroque style that evolved from this program was paradoxically both sensuous and spiritual; while a naturalistic treatment rendered the religious image more accessible to the average churchgoer, dramatic and illusory effects were used to stimulate devotion and convey an impression of the splendour of the divine. Baroque church ceilings thus dissolved in painted scenes that presented vivid views of the infinite to the observer and directed the senses toward heavenly concerns.

"The Deposition of Christ" Caravaggio

• Indeed, Annibale Carracci and Caravaggio, the two Italian painters who decisively broke with Mannerism in the 1590s and thus helped usher in the Baroque style, painted, respectively, in classicist and realist modes.

"The Ecstasy of St. Teresa"

Giovanni Bernini, 1652 The common theme with Baroque artist is when the

divine meets the earthly. Here in Angel pierces St. Teresa with the arrow of love bringing her

closer to God.

"Descent from the Cross"Rembrandt, 1634