Parmigianino | Mannerist | Paintings

Parmigianino, byname of Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, Mazzola also spelled Mazzuoli (born Jan. 11, 1503, Parma, duchy of Milan [Italy] - died Aug. 24, 1540, Casalmaggiore, Cremona), Italian painter* who was one of the first artists to develop the elegant and sophisticated version of Mannerist style* that became a formative influence on the post-High Renaissance* generation.

There is no doubt that Correggio was the strongest single influence on Parmigianino’s early development, but Parmigianino probably was never his pupil. The influence is apparent in Parmigianino’s first important work, the Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine (c. 1521).

About 1522-23 he executed two series of frescoes: one series, in two side chapels of S. Giovanni Evangelista, in Parma, was executed contemporaneously with Correggio’s great murals on the dome and pendentives of that church, and the other, representing the Legend of Diana and Actaeon, was executed on the ceiling of a room in the Rocca Sanvitale at Fontanellato just outside Parma.

The scheme of the latter decoration recalls Correggio’s work in the Camera di San Paolo in Parma.

After the summer of 1524, Parmigianino* moved to Rome, taking with him three specimens of his work to impress the pope, including the famous self-portrait that he had painted on a convex panel from his reflection in a convex mirror.

His chief painting done in Rome is the large Vision of St. Jerome (1527).

Although this work shows the influence of Michelangelo, it was Raphael’s ideal beauty of form and feature that influenced his entire oeuvre.

While at work on the Vision of St. Jerome in 1527, he was interrupted by soldiers of the imperial army taking part in the sack of Rome, and he left for Bologna.

There he painted one of his masterpieces, the Madonna with St. Margaret and Other Saints.

In 1531 he returned to Parma, where he remained for the rest of his life, the principal works of this last period being the Madonna of the Long Neck (1534) and the frescoes on the vault preceding the apse of Sta. Maria della Steccata.

Parmigianino | Madonna with the Long Neck, 1534

The latter were to have been only part of a much larger scheme of decoration in the church, but Parmigianino was extremely dilatory over their execution, and he was eventually imprisoned for breaking his contract, while the frescoes were contracted to Giulio Romano and Michelangelo Anselmi.

Parmigianino was one of the most remarkable portrait painters of the century outside Venice.

Some of his best portraits are in Naples, in the National Museum and Gallery of Capodimonte, including the Gian Galeazzo Sanvitale (1524) and the "Portrait of a young woman called Antea" (c. 1535-37).

Parmigianino | Portrait of a young woman called Antea (1535-37)

The style that he developed was, in its suave attenuations and technical virtuosity, one of the most brilliant and influential manifestations of Mannerism. It was an extreme development of Raphael’s late manner and opposed the naturalistic basis inherent in High Renaissance art.

Parmigianino’s works are distinguished by ambiguity of spatial composition, by distortion and elongation of the human figure, and by the pursuit of what the art historian Giorgio Vasari called “grace”; that is to say, a rhythmical, sensuous beauty beyond the beauty of nature.

This last quality of attenuated elegance is evident not only in Parmigianino’s paintings but also in his numerous and sensitive drawings.

One of the first Italian artists to practice etching, Parmigianino used the etching needle with the freedom of a pen, usually to reproduce his own drawings, which were in great demand. | © Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, detto il Parmigianino, è stato un pittore Italiano, fondamentale esponente della corrente manierista e della pittura emiliana in generale. Il soprannome, oltre che dalle origini, gli derivò dalla corporatura minuta e l'aspetto gentile.

Figura tra le più originali del manierismo italiano nella sua versione settentrionale, l'artista esercitò una profonda influenza anche sull'arte francese del cinquecento. Influenzato nelle primissime opere dal Correggio, il Parmigianino cominciò a staccarsi dallo stile del maestro fin dalla sua prima commissione importante, gli affreschi in alcune cappelle di S. Giovanni Evangelista a Parma (1521-24), con la contrapposizione marcata di forme e colori.

Ma già negli affreschi con la Leggenda di Diana e Atteone per la Rocca Sanvitale a Fontanellato e nel Galeazzo Sanvitale, Napoli, Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte, l'artista venne elaborando un grafismo nervoso e raffinato, dalla pennellata sottilissima, rispondente ai dettami manieristici.

Contemporanee a queste opere dovettero essere le prime prove incisorie del Parmigianino, che fu tra i primi sperimentatori della tecnica dell'acquaforte in Italia.

Giunto nel 1524 a Roma, si inserì rapidamente nella cultura raffaellesca, con la ricerca di un formalismo puro che utilizzava il disegno di Raffaello e la “linea serpentinata” teorizzata da Michelangelo fino a risultati di un antinaturalismo tutto intellettuale, basato su forme ovali, allungate, raggelate dai freddi toni cangianti del colore.

Le premesse romane, Madonna col Bambino e S. Giovannino, Napoli, Capodimonte; Visione di S. Girolamo, Londra, National Gallery, furono ulteriormente sviluppate nel periodo bolognese (1528-31), con opere fondamentali per il manierismo emiliano del Cinquecento: la pala di S. Rocco per S. Petronio, la Madonna col bambino e S. Margherita (1529, Bologna, Pinacoteca), la Madonna della rosa, 1531, Dresda, Gemäldegalerie.

Tornato a Parma, fu incaricato di eseguire decorazioni nella chiesa della Steccata che portò a termine solo in parte; nelle ultime opere, la celeberrima "Madonna dal collo lungo", Firenze, Uffizi e la "Schiava Turca" 1530 ca., Parma, Pinacoteca, entrambe costruite su rapporti di forme ovali, il Parmigianino giunse a risultati di assoluta astrazione formale.