Rennaissance and Mannerist

The art work from the 1400's to the 1600's showed a drastic change after 1520 when Mannerism was brought about. After a while the Mannerist style was known to not be such a good thing. People saw the paintings as not classical and distorted or out of proportion. Mannerism seemed to coincide with a period of political and religious unrest which lead to and age of anxiety and crisis where the clarity and confidence of the High Renaissance was lost (Benton and DiYanni 37-38). Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Parmigianino show some differences in Renaissance and Mannerism with their works of art of the Madonna.

Leonardo da Vinci's Madonna of the Rocks was painted in 1483 at the time of the High Renaissance. Everything is directly proportional to one another as if everything was set up as a triangle. Da Vinci used two techniques called chiaroscuro that he developed that makes the painting very dark yet, has light areas to it to bring out much detail and Sfumato which makes everything in the painting look like it has a smoky atmosphere (Benton and DiYanni 22). Raphael who also was a High Renaissance painter became famous for his paintings of the Madonna, one of which was called Madonna of the Meadows. Along with Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael also uses a triangular position for the painting. Raphael uses his colors in two different ways, one to create depth and the other as symbolic. For symbolic reasons Raphael used the red in the dress to show her humanity and the blue to mantle her spirituality, which the colors were dictated by the Church (www.blogger.com).

One of the main paintings that bring out the Mannerist style would be the Madonna with the Long Neck by Parmigianino from 1534-1540. In most opinions the painting is unreal and not life like for most of the Renaissance works of art are. That is how we know that this is from Mannerist times. Parmigianino painted Madonna with a very long neck and a larger bottom half. The fingers and toes are also odd because of the long thin bone structure to them; also the painting is uneven where there are a lot of people on the left side and nothing to the right of the painting. The column in the background on the right symbolizes the torture of Jesus, because he was bound to a column (Benton and DiYanni 38). The small prophet in the bottom right hand corner just seems to take up room where there was not much detail with out him.

After discussing both Renaissance paintings and Mannerist