Beccafumi, Domenico

(1485-1551)

   Sienese Mannerist painter who began his career by following the Sienese tradition of the late 15th century, a style he abandoned once he was exposed to the art Michelangelo and Raphael had created in Rome. The composition of Beccafumi's Stigmatization of St. Catherine of Siena (c. 1518; Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale), meant for the Benedictine Convent of Monte Olivieto, depends on Raphael's symmetrical arrangements. The earth tones and use of sfumato he borrowed from Leonardo da Vinci, and the sculptural forms from Michelangelo. Yet, while his representation owes debt to the greatest masters of the High Renaissance, it is nevertheless an anticlassical image without central focus. It also features unrealistic proportions and an extreme low placement of the background city, elements that classify the work as Mannerist. Beccafumi's Christ in Limbo (c. 1535; Siena Pinacoteca Nazionale) represents his mature style. Here he created a complex composition with a large number of figures arranged in a semicircle, not the usual Renaissance pyramid or other geometric arrangement. The figures in the foreground are heavily foreshortened and the scene seems to move up rather than back. These illogical elements are what place Beccafumi among the great masters of the Mannerist style.