2. Oblivion (note
no back of Time (note wings
head, no brain, o and hourglass)
memory)
Jest or Folly (with
roses and bells on his
ankle. Has stepped on
Jealousy a thorn – the pleasure
and pain of love)
The Golden
Apple of Venus Fraud (serpent’s
given by Paris in tail, honeycomb and
the fateful
string)
contest with
Minerva and
Juno
(Hera, Athena &
Aphrodite). His
reward was
Helen and the Deceit
Trojan War.

3. Allegory with Venus and Cupid c.
1455
• Agnolo Bronzino
• A “puzzle painting” –alludes to different
qualities of Love.
• Jest – compared to Fraud, Jealousy and Deceit.
• Note Time and Oblivion struggling with the
blue cloth in an attempt to reveal (or forget)
the Truth
• Venus disarms her own son (Cupid)

4. Allegories
• An allegory that takes time to unravel and understand
• Greater effort = greater reward
• Some allegories more universal – David & Goliath. Some
more elite. Requires specific education.
• May have been a gift of Cosimode’Medici to Francis I. ( a
gift of flattery – implies
– 1. that Francis will understand all the references
– 2. that Cosimo is intelligent as well
– 3. caters to the taste of Francis: elegant, refined, erotic

5. Mannerism
Bronzino, Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time
• Given to Francis I of France as a gift from the Medici in
Florence
• Extremely learned allegories that defy easy interpretation
• Venus fondled by Cupid, her son, and uncovered by Father
Time
• Venus holds the apple she won in a beauty contest
• Cupid has his eyes on the apple, but does not suspect that
Venus has removed an arrow from his quiver
• Folly throws roses
• Vanity is beautiful girl on the outside, but an animal under
her skirt
• Vanity’s hands are oddly arranged
• Masks symbolize falseness; doves symbolize love
• Envy is green
• Strong contours
• High key color, flesh smooth as porcelain

6. Women Artists
• Women’s roles in Florence, Sienna and Venice
very limited
• More relaxed guild system outside of these
cities

7. Prosperzia de’Rossi (1490 – 1530)
•First woman sculptor to leave works of
such high quality
•Knowledge of male anatomy that was
unusual for the time in women

8. SofonisbaAnguissola, 1532 – 1625
•1ST woman painter not the daughter of another painter
•Specialized in portraits
•Received high praise from Michelangelo
•Enjoyed the Patronage of the Spanish Royal family

9. Mannerist Painting
• emphasized complexity and virtuosity over naturalistic representation.
• While the formal vocabulary of Mannerism takes much from the later
works of Michelangelo (1475–1564) and Raphael (1483–1520), its
adherents generally favored compositional tension and instability rather
than the balance and clarity of earlier Renaissance painting.
• Some characteristics common to many Mannerist works include distortion
of the human figure,
• a flattening of pictorial space, and a cultivated intellectual sophistication

10. Mannerism
• Figures often seek out toward the frame
rather than the center of the composition
• Heavy Intertwining of Figures
• Distortion and elongation of frms
• Often a lack of mathematical space
• Many religious and mythological subjects,
portraits

11. Correggio (1494-1534
•Begins a school of
painting taken up by
Parmigiano in Parma
•Breaks up the symmetry
og High Renaissance using
bouyant naturalism rather
than deliberate chaos
•Specializes in soft
voluptuous flesh
•Reminiscent of Mantegna
with POV
•Huge influence on
Baroque ceiling painting

12. Mannerism
Parmigianino, Madonna of the Long
Neck
• Exaggerated elegance, long delicate
hands and neck
• Ambiguous columns: one column or
many? This part of painting left
unfinished, as is the hair of the Christ
Child
• Self-portrait of artist gazes out at us
at left
• Mary’s small head: standards of
beauty of the time
• Christ’s pose inspired by
Michelangelo’s Pietà
• Vanishing point is low
• Oddly proportioned figures, some
parts of the painting are crowded
others relatively empty

13. Mannerism
Bologna, Rape of the Sabine Women
• Uncommissioned, done to silence
critics who doubted his ability to
carve monumental marble works
• To be seen from all sides
• Spiraling movement, figura
serpentinata
• Arms and legs spiral in space
• Nude figures
• Reference to Laocoön in the
crouching old man
• Three bodies interlock
• Ancient sources said that sculptures
were made from a single block. The
Renaissance discovered this was
untrue. Bologna wanted to surpass
the ancients.