{‘Mannerism’ [Footnotes][continued (6)]}[6th May 1991]

[Redbook9:275][19910506:0000f]{‘Mannerism’ [Footnotes][continued (6)]}[6th May 1991]

19910506

[continued]

‘Unless the term Mannerism is to become so restricted as to exclude the entire oeuvre of Michelangelo, it seems that any definition of it must, after all, take into account those qualities of tension and disturbance that pervaded his art throughout his middle and later career. In some cases, they may be plausibly related to the general spiritual climate of the period; the apocalyptic character of the “Last Judgment” certainly reflects the gloomy and uncertain mood prevailing in Rome immediately after the Sack of 1527. In other cases, Michelangelo’s inner anguish was related to a more obviously personal crisis.* But whatever the cause, the spiritual malaise apparent in his art struck a deeply sympathetic chord in the souls of many of his contemporaries, and artists as diverse as Pontormo, Tintoretto, and El Greco may similarly be seen as adapting the formal language of Mannerism to an expressive purpose far removed from the aesthetic ideal of “maniera”.

**

*{64C|2048G~1536[ce]}

** – [Encyclopaedia of Visual Art 4: 685]

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