Concept in Definition ABC

Perhaps one of the most underrated artistic styles, Mannerism took place in Western Europe in the second half of the 16th century, when the main elements of the Renaissance they were beginning to go into crisis. While it still maintained many of the most important features of the art Renaissance, Mannerism meant a progressive abandonment of the proportion of the figures, of the perspective spatial, the use of clear and defined lines and the measured and sweet expressions of the Renaissance characters. For many experts, Mannerism is a period of transition between Renaissance art and the baroque art of the following centuries.

The name of Mannerism has to do with the idea that painters of this period slowly began to paint "in their own way", following the general rules of the painting but interpreting their sketches and what they observed of reality in a unique and personal way. In many cases, the term Mannerism was used with a certain derogatory tone since it was considered that the painters of this style They did not represent reality as it should be represented, but they made inaccurate copies of the authors Renaissance.

Mannerism is undoubtedly a style artistic in itself and, as such, it should not be compared with others since much of its characteristic elements had a reason for being. As with all artistic styles, Mannerism represented a period of crisis not only artistic but also social and political in which the disorder, hopelessness, the questioning of Renaissance values ​​and different conflicts contributed to generating an altered representation of reality.

For Mannerism it was no longer important to portray what was observed in a real and adequate way. In this sense, this artistic style would resort to the use of inappropriate or strange colors (especially green and yellowish for the skin, or very highlighted throughout the work), to disheveled proportions that made people unbalancedly tall and skinny, to expressions clearly suffering and to a certain violence on the thematic of the works.

Some of the most recognized Mannerist painters and artists were El Greco, Tintoretto, Arcimboldo, Vasari, Fiorentino and some of the last works of Michelangelo in which the characteristic elements of Renaissance art began to be abandoned.