Mannerism I
Do you like manners? What about Mannerists? What about that time period between High Renaissance and the Baroque period? Did you know that’s when Mannerism happened? What’s that? You like the music of Justin Timberlake and Roy Hargrove? Ok.
So you know how the era of Michelangelo and Raphael achieved the expression of harmony and reality in nature? Yeah well, what do you do after that? Especially when the world was going from stable times to disorder? Wouldn’t you exaggerate their ideal beauty? Wouldn’t you go from symmetrical compositions with centered weight to oblique compositions with figures away from the center? Abandonment in real nature became the new originality.
Do you want to know where Mannerism came from? Would you believe me if the word came from the Italian term “de maniera”, meaning work done with a developed style over a strict depiction of nature? Did you know common characteristics of Mannerism involved distorted and elongated bodies, lurid colors, heightened tension and movement, and unrealistic lighting?
Well, there you go. More later.
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