Editing Mannerism (section)

==Origin and development==
By the end of the High Renaissance, young artists experienced a crisis:<ref name="ReferenceC" /> It seemed that everything that could be achieved was already achieved. No more difficulties, technical or otherwise, remained to be solved. The detailed knowledge of anatomy, light, [[physiognomy]] and how humans register emotion in expression and gesture, the innovative use of the human form in figurative composition, and the use of the subtle gradation of tone, all had reached near perfection. The young artists needed to find a new goal, and they sought new approaches.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-brilliant-neurotics-of-the-late-renaissance/|title=The brilliant neurotics of the late Renaissance|date=17 May 2014|website=The Spectator|language=en-US}}</ref> At this point Mannerism started to emerge.<ref name="ReferenceC" /> The new style developed between 1510 and 1520 either in Florence, or in Rome, or both cities simultaneously.{{sfn|Freedberg|1993|pp=175–177}}
[[File:Michelangelo, Separation of the Earth from the Waters 00.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Collected figures, ''[[ignudi]]'', from Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling]]

===Origins and models===
This period has been described as a "natural extension"<ref name="ReferenceB" /> of the art of [[Andrea del Sarto]], Michelangelo, and Raphael. Michelangelo developed his style at an early age, a deeply original one that was greatly admired at first, then often copied and imitated by other artists of the era.<ref name="ReferenceB" /> One of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his ''[[terribilità]]'', a sense of awe-inspiring grandeur, and subsequent artists attempted to imitate it.<ref name="ReferenceB" /> Other artists learned Michelangelo's impassioned and highly personal style by copying the works of the master, a standard way that students learned to paint and sculpt. His [[Sistine Chapel ceiling]] provided examples for them to follow, in particular his representation of collected figures often called ''[[ignudi]]'' and of the [[Libyan Sibyl]], his [[vestibule (Architecture)|vestibule]] to the [[Laurentian Library]], the figures on his [[Medici Chapel (Michelangelo)|Medici tombs]], and above all his ''[[The Last Judgment (Michelangelo)|Last Judgment]]''. The later Michelangelo was one of the great models of Mannerism.<ref name="ReferenceB" /> Young artists broke into his house and stole drawings from him.<ref name="autogenerated1">Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects.</ref> In his book ''Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects'', Giorgio Vasari noted that Michelangelo stated once: "Those who are followers can never pass by whom they follow".<ref name="autogenerated1"/>

====The competitive spirit====
The competitive spirit was cultivated by patrons who encouraged sponsored artists to emphasize virtuosic technique and to compete with one another for commissions. It drove artists to look for new approaches and dramatically illuminated scenes, elaborate clothes and compositions, elongated proportions, highly stylized poses, and a lack of clear perspective. [[Leonardo da Vinci]] and [[Michelangelo]] were each given a commission by [[Gonfaloniere of Justice|Gonfaloniere]] [[Piero Soderini]] to decorate a wall in the [[Palazzo Vecchio|Hall of Five Hundred]] in Florence. These two artists were set to paint side by side and compete against each other,<ref name="Battle of Cascina">{{cite web |last1=Redazione |title=The Battle of Cascina: when Michelangelo competed with Leonardo da Vinci. |url=https://www.finestresullarte.info/en/works-and-artists/the-battle-of-cascina-when-michelangelo-competed-with-leonardo-da-vinci |website=Finestre sull' Arte |publisher=Danae Project srl. |access-date=March 6, 2025}}</ref> fueling the incentive to be as innovative as possible.{{citation needed|date=February 2023}}
{| style="margin:auto;"
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|[[File:La batalla de Cascina - Sangallo.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|alt=copy of lost painting that had been by Michelangelo|Copy after lost original, Michelangelo's ''Battaglia di Cascina'', by [[Bastiano da Sangallo]], originally intended by Michelangelo to compete with Leonardo's entry for the same commission]]
|[[File:Peter Paul Ruben's copy of the lost Battle of Anghiari.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|alt=copy of lost painting that had been by Leonardo da Vinci|Copy after lost original, [[Leonardo da Vinci]]'s ''[[The Battle of Anghiari (Leonardo)|Battaglia di Anghiari]]'', by [[Rubens]], originally intended by Leonardo to compete with Michelangelo's entry for the same commission]]
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===Early mannerism===
[[File:Jacopo Pontormo 004.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Jacopo Pontormo]], ''Entombment'', 1528; [[Santa Felicita, Florence]]]]
The early Mannerists in Florence—especially the students of [[Andrea del Sarto]] such as [[Jacopo da Pontormo]] and [[Rosso Fiorentino]]—are notable for elongated forms, precariously balanced poses, a collapsed perspective, irrational settings, and theatrical lighting. [[Parmigianino]] (a student of [[Antonio da Correggio|Correggio]]) and [[Giulio Romano (painter)|Giulio Romano]] (Raphael's head assistant) were moving in similarly stylized aesthetic directions in Rome. These artists had matured under the influence of the High Renaissance, and their style has been characterized as a reaction to or exaggerated extension of it. Instead of studying nature directly, younger artists began studying Hellenistic sculpture and paintings of masters past. Therefore, this style is often identified as "anti-classical",<ref name=":8">{{Cite book |last=Friedländer |first=Walter |author-link=Walter Friedländer |url=https://archive.org/details/mannerismantiman00frie/page/n5/mode/2up?q=%22anti%22 |title=Mannerism and Anti-Mannerism in Italian Painting |publisher=[[Schocken Books]] |year=1965 |pages=48 |isbn=978-0-8052-0094-2 |url-access=registration}}</ref> yet at the time it was considered a natural progression from the High Renaissance. The earliest experimental phase of Mannerism, known for its "anti-classical" forms, lasted until about 1540 or 1550.{{sfn|Freedberg|1993|pp=175–177}} [[Marcia B. Hall]], professor of art history at Temple University, notes in her book ''After Raphael'' that Raphael's premature death marked the beginning of Mannerism in Rome.{{Citation needed|date=January 2021}}

In past analyses, it has been noted that mannerism arose in the early 16th century contemporaneously with a number of other social, scientific, religious and political movements such as the [[Copernican heliocentrism]], the [[Sack of Rome in 1527]], and the [[Protestant Reformation]]'s increasing challenge to the power of the Catholic Church. Because of this, the style's elongated forms and distorted forms were once interpreted as a reaction to the idealized compositions prevalent in High Renaissance art.<ref name="grove">Manfred Wundram, "Mannerism," Grove Art Online. Oxford University Press, [accessed 23 April 2008].</ref> This explanation for the radical stylistic shift {{Circa|1520}} has fallen out of scholarly favor, though early Mannerist art is still sharply contrasted with High Renaissance conventions; the accessibility and balance achieved by Raphael's ''[[The School of Athens|School of Athens]]'' no longer seemed to interest young artists.{{Citation needed|date=January 2021}}

===High maniera===
The second period of Mannerism is commonly differentiated{{citation needed|date=June 2014}} from the earlier, so-called "anti-classical" phase.
Subsequent mannerists stressed intellectual conceits and artistic virtuosity, features that have led later critics to accuse them of working in an unnatural and affected "manner" (''maniera''). Maniera artists looked to their older contemporary Michelangelo as their principal model; theirs was an art imitating art, rather than an art imitating nature. Art historian [[Sydney Joseph Freedberg]] argues that the intellectualizing aspect of maniera art involves expecting its audience to notice and appreciate this visual reference—a familiar figure in an unfamiliar setting enclosed between "unseen, but felt, quotation marks".{{sfn|Freedberg|1965|p=191}} The height of artifice is the Maniera painter's penchant for deliberately misappropriating a quotation. [[Agnolo Bronzino]] and [[Giorgio Vasari]] exemplify this strain of Maniera that lasted from about 1530 to 1580. Based largely at courts and in intellectual circles around Europe, Maniera art couples exaggerated elegance with exquisite attention to surface and detail: porcelain-skinned figures recline in an even, tempered light, acknowledging the viewer with a cool glance, if they make eye contact at all. The Maniera subject rarely displays much emotion, and for this reason works exemplifying this trend are often called 'cold' or 'aloof.' This is typical of the so-called "stylish style" or ''Maniera'' in its maturity.{{sfn|Shearman|1967|p=19}}