Parmigianino

(Francesco Mazzola; 1503-1540)

   Mannerist painter from Parma, where he had the opportunity to study the works of Correggio. In 1524 Parmigianino traveled to Rome, where he remained until 1527 when the city was sacked. From there, he fled to Bologna and by 1531 he was back in his hometown. His famed Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) he painted in 1524 prior to his visit to Rome. The work is rendered on a convex wooden panel and mimics the distortions one would see in an image reflected in a convex mirror, recalling the optical experiments of Jan van Eyck and Petrus Christus. Parmigianino's Madonna with the Long Neck (1534-1540; Florence, Uffizi) he created for the Church of Santa Maria dei Servi in Parma. It shows his exposure to the works of Michelangelo and Raphael in Rome as the figures possess the same monumentality as those rendered by these masters. The Christ Child, asleep on his mother's lap, in fact depends on Michelangelo's Christ in his Vatican Pietà (1498/1499-1500) and the position of Mary's left foot is taken directly from Michelangelo's Libyan Sibyl on the Sistine ceiling, Vatican (1508-1512). The influence of Leonardo da Vinci is also felt in this work, particularly in the use of sfumato, though perhaps Parmigianino adopted this technique from studying the art of Correggio. The disparate proportions and ambiguities, including columns that lead to nowhere and angels who share one leg, mark this work as decidedly Mannerist. In 1535, Parmigianino painted Cupid Carving His Bow (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum), a sensuous mythological work so admired by Peter Paul Rubens that he copied it. Parmigianino's Pallas Athena (c. 1539, Windsor Collection) is an example of his late phase. A bust portrait of the goddess of wisdom (Minerva), it shows her wearing an armor adorned with a cameo that depicts in grisaille a winged Victory with palm and olive branch in hand flying over the city of Athens, which she won in a contest with Poseidon (Neptune).

   Parmigianino is known for his graceful forms and complex iconographic programs that in some ways reflect his own complex personality. Upon his return to Parma, he received a commission to render frescoes in the Church of Santa Maria della Steccata. But instead of fulfilling the commission, he spent most of his time engaged in alchemy. Having breached his contract, he was imprisoned for almost a decade until he escaped. He died at 37, yet in spite of his short career, he became the most influential painter of the Mannerist movement.