Counter-Mannerism
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Counter-Mannerism is a general art historical term for a trend in painting, printmaking and interior decoration that originated as a sub-category of Mannerism. Contra-Maniera (or Counter-Mannerism in English) followed the general worldliness of the second generation of Mannerist painters. It is generally disquieting due to its visionary style - a style that evolved in Florentine painting as a result of a revolt against the classical balance of the High Renaissance art.
An example of the Counter-Mannerist style from the period is the Grotesque, which is deliberately anti-actual, often including elaborate depictions of multiple figures bound in tendrils. The Grotesque (in Italian Grottosesco) became an arabesque style of all-over decoration based on a linked mêlée of fantastic, diminutive figures deriving from Roman mural and vault decoration which had been unearthed during the Renaissance (such as at the Golden House of Nero); mural decorations which themselves suggested ancient expressions of religio-sexual inter-penetrability. This fanciful imagery involved mixing animal, human, and plant forms together. First revived in the Renaissance by the school of Raphaël (1483-1520) in Rome, the Grotesque quickly came into fashion in 16th-century Italy and subsequently became popular throughout Europe.
Painters of the style described as Contra-Maniera or Counter-Mannerist
- Domenico Cresti (Il Passignano)
- Lodovico Cigoli
- Jacopo Chimenti da Empoli
- Andrea Boscoli
- Gregorio Pagani
- Santi di Tito
- Bernardino Poccetti
- Giulio Mazzoni Palazzo Capodiferro
- Andrea del Sarto
- Francesco Curradi
- Antonio Tempesta
- Francesco Curradi
- Maso da San Friano
Referances
- John Shearman, Andrea del Sarto, Volume 1 Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965
- John Shearman, Mannerism, Baltimore, MD/Penguin, 1967
- Joseph Nechvatal, Immersive Ideals / Critical Distances. LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, 2009
