Early Modern Art: Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque and Rococo
Early modern art covers Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque and Rococo, c. 1400–1780. The exam tests linear perspective, patronage, the paragone, stylistic attribution, and the shift from idealised balance to manipulation and spectacle.
Core rules
- Renaissance: Brunelleschi's perspective and dome; Alberti's treatise; Masaccio's Trinity; Botticelli; Leonardo's sfumato; Michelangelo's terribilità; Raphael's balance; Venetian colour (Titian).
- Mannerism: elongation, unstable pose, artificial colour, intellectual caprice; Parmigianino's Madonna of the Long Neck; Pontormo.
- Baroque: Caravaggio's tenebrism; Bernini's theatrical sculpture; Borromini's curved plans; Velázquez; Rubens; palace and church as total spectacle.
- Rococo: intimate scale, pastel palette, asymmetry, playful eroticism; Watteau, Boucher, Fragonard.
Worked example
Compare a painting with a single strong light source, dark ground and ordinary tax-collector figures around Christ with a Mannerist Madonna with an impossibly long neck. Answer: the first is Caravaggio's Calling of St Matthew (c. 1599–1600), Baroque; the second is Parmigianino's Madonna of the Long Neck (c. 1534–40), Mannerism. Reasoning: Caravaggio uses tenebrism and contemporary dress to make the sacred event immediate; Parmigianino uses elongation and unstable composition to signal artifice and grace. The contrast is not realism versus abstraction but different functions: persuasion versus virtuoso elegance.
Traps
Do not use Renaissance for all fifteenth- and sixteenth-century art; Mannerism is a deliberate departure, not a failure of skill. Baroque is not merely ornate: it organises space, light and viewer movement. Rococo is not small-scale Baroque; it changes function and audience. Dates matter: Caravaggio is post-Tridentine, not High Renaissance.