Parmigianino: 12 works

'This artist, who came from Parma, is considered one of the most progressive painters in the 1st half of the 16th century in Upper Italy, Parmigianino's work provides a transition from the Renaissance to Mannerism, and the effects of his delicate and extravagant formal language were still being felt in the art of Rudolf II's court in Prague (ca. 1600).Parmigianino presented this self-portrait, painted on a convex wooden surface, along with two other small-format works to Pope Clement VII in the summer of 1524.'

'The artistic production of Parmigianino Parmigianino died young, only 37 years old, and consequently his body of work is quite limited. His most famous work is a small self-portrait in which the artist's face is reflected in a round convex mirror; a work that is regarded as the cornerstone of the Mannerist style.'

'Parmigianino crammed two interlocking studies of the Holy Family, one drawn upside down from the other, onto this sheet of paper.'

'Scholars generally connect the drawings on the recto--Saint John the Baptist, Saint Jerome, a crucifix seen from the side, and several heads--with Parmigianino's famous altarpiece, the Vision of Saint Jerome in the National Gallery of Art in London. Parmigianino may also have drawn these figures as a compositional study for a similar, earlier altarpiece that was either lost or never made.'

'Parmigianino made this drawing in preparation for an altarpiece, The Vision of Saint Jerome, of about 1526, now in London's National Gallery, but the painted figure ended up less powerful and older than this vigorous creature. His study of monumental ancient sculpture and Michelangelo's art led to this figure's expansiveness and muscularity.'

'Hailed as the new Raphael, Parmigianino was one of the most influential artists of the sixteenth century, cultivating a mannered gracefulness of pose and physiognomy, combined with new and dramatic coloristic effects, that transformed the classicism of his Renaissance predecessors. In his Lives of the Artists (1568), Giorgio Vasari observed that Parmigianino "gave to his figures ...'

'The panel was described in 1560 by historian Pietro Lamo as in the palazzo in Bologna of Count Giorgio Manzuoli; according to Vasari, Parmigianino would have painted it for this patron.'

'Between 1527 and 1530, when the drawings were made, Parmigianino was working with the woodcutter Antonio da Trento, and so the Budapest sheet was possibly intended for woodcuts, which was probably never realized.'

'Parmigianino brilliantly characterises the different surfaces: Amor's hair, which is artistically coiffed in delicate curls, the soft wings elegantly attached to his body and, finally, the skin of the three protagonists, the colour of which powerfully dominates the picture.'

'These studies demonstrate the freedom of his penwork and his fertile thought process in experimenting with a variety of poses before settling on his elegant final solution. On the recto, Parmigianino explored how to position the Madonna and Child together, focusing on the Christ Child's pose.'

'Parmigianino may have based the pose of the huntsman on a terracotta figure by Michelangelo in the Casa Buonarotti in Florence, which is thought to have been the model for the sculpture of David. It is clear that Parmigianino was particularly attracted to the pose, which he used in a number of drawings that explored the eroticism of the male figure.'

'They brought him additional recognition as one of the earliest influential "Mannerist" artists in sixteenth-century Italy and France. In 1524 Parmigianino painted a portrait of Gian Galeazzo Sanvitale of Fontanellato, Naples.'