Renaissance and Mannerism
The exam tests the Quattrocento and Cinquecento as a set of problem-solving moves - perspective, proportion, antique revival, the new status of the artist - and Mannerism as a deliberate departure from them. You will usually be asked to compare two works or to explain why a work looks the way it does.
Core rules and concepts
- Quattrocento. Brunelleschi's Florence dome (1420–1436) uses a double shell and herringbone brick; his linear perspective makes space measurable. Masaccio's Trinity (c. 1425–27) places a one-point perspective grid behind a painted chapel framework. Donatello's bronze David (c. 1440s) revives the nude and contrapposto. Alberti codifies proportion; humanism makes the body the measure of the world.
- Cinquecento. Leonardo: sfumato, atmospheric depth, observation (Mona Lisa, 1503–19). Michelangelo: terribilità, the heroic body, sculptural drawing (Sistine ceiling 1508–12; Last Judgement 1536–41). Raphael: clarity and balance (School of Athens, 1509–11). Venice: colour and oil on canvas - Titian's tonal modelling (colorito) against Florentine disegno.
- Mannerism. From about 1520: figura serpentinata, elongation, acid colour, ambiguous space, quotation of the masters. Pontormo's Deposition, Parmigianino's Madonna with the Long Neck (1534–40), Bronzino's cold allegories, and El Greco's Burial of the Count of Orgaz (1586) - Byzantine elongation plus Venetian colour.
Worked example
Compare Masaccio's Trinity with Parmigianino's Madonna. Both are religious. Masaccio uses a single vanishing point at the viewer's eye level, a measured architectural box, consistent shadow, bodies with real weight, and places the donors outside the sacred space. Parmigianino has no consistent vanishing point, a column with no structural sense, an impossibly long neck and fingers, and the Child sliding from the lap. The reasoning to write: perspective and anatomy are rational systems in 1425; in 1534 the same systems are stretched to show grace, artifice and spiritual refinement - art about art.
Traps that cost marks
- El Greco is a Mannerist, not a Baroque painter.
- Sfumato belongs to Leonardo; chiaroscuro and tenebrism are later developments.
- Do not label every 16th-century nude "Mannerist" - check the space, proportion and colour.
- "Renaissance" is a period, not a style label for everything after 1400.