User:Stomme/Mannerism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mannerism identifies several major trends in European painting, sculpture, and architecture that developed in Italy around 1520.[1] The period lasted until about 1580 in Italian art, but continued into the seventeenth century throughout Europe. Historians in other fields, following the art historical terminology, also apply the label to some early modern forms of literature and music of the sixteenth and seventeen centuries. Mannerism originated in the 1510s and 1520s in Florence and Rome. Stylistically, it is a variety of individual approaches that developed out of and reacted to or exaggerated the harmonious ideals and restrained naturalism associated with High Renaissance art and architecture. After about 1530, Mannerism represents a stylish and refined artistic languageāembodying elements of sprezzatura (effortless grace or nonchalance) popularized by Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier (1528)āand becomes increasingly a Europe-wide style.[2] General characteristics are artificiality, as opposed to Baroque naturalism, and a demonstration of intellectual, technical, and artistic virtuosity.