Parmigianino

Parmigianino or Parmigiano , 1503-40, Italian painter and etcher, one of the most sensitive mannerist artists (see mannerism ) and one of the period's finest draftsmen. His real name was Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola. The name Parmigianino is derived from his birthplace, Parma. His early paintings show the pervasive influence of Correggio . These include The Marriage of St. Catherine (Parma Gall.) and the frescoes in San Giovanni Evangelista, where both artists painted. Parmigianino was in Rome for a few years, but had to flee during the sack of the city in 1527. He went to Bologna, where he painted the altarpiece Madonna and Child with St. Margaret and Other Saints. One of his most curious works is a painting of himself seen in the distorted reflection of a convex mirror (Vienna). In 1531 he returned to Parma and spent the last years of his life painting frescoes in Santa Maria della Steccata. His art is noted for its remarkable grace and sensuality and for its elongated figures. Among his important works are the Vision of St. Jerome (National Gall., London); Madonna dal Collo Lungo (Uffizi, Florence); and the Legend of Diane and Acteon (Rocca di Fontanellato, near Parma). Parmigianino was one of the first artists to use the technique of etching, and through this medium his style became influential in Italy and N Europe.

Bibliography: See A. E. Popham, Catalogue of the Drawings of Parmigianino (3 vol., 1971); study by S. Freedberg (1950, repr. 1971); D. Franklin and D. Ekserdjian, The Art of Parmigianino (2004).

Parmigianino ( Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola) (1503–40). Italian Mannerist painter, draughtsman, and printmaker, born in Parma, from which he takes his nickname. He was precociously gifted, and as early as 1522–3 he painted highly accomplished frescos in two chapels in S. Giovanni Evangelista, Parma; they show his admiration for Correggio, who was working in the same church at this time. The originality and sophistication he displayed from the beginning, particularly his love of unusual spatial effects, is most memorably seen in his celebrated Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1524, KH Mus., Vienna), in which Vasari said he looks ‘so beautiful that he seemed an angel rather than a man’. In 1524 Parmigianino moved to Rome, possibly via Florence, and his work became both grander and more graceful under the influence of Raphael and Michelangelo. The Vision of St Jerome (1526–7, NG, London) is his most important work of this time, showing the disturbing emotional intensity he created with his elongated forms, disjointed sense of space, chill lighting, and lascivious atmosphere. Parmigianino left Rome after it was sacked by German troops in 1527 and moved to Bologna. In 1530 he returned to Parma and contracted to paint frescos in S. Maria della Steccata. He failed to complete the work, however, and in 1539 was imprisoned for breach of contract. Vasari says he neglected the work because he was infatuated with alchemy—‘he allowed his beard to grow long and disordered … he neglected himself and grew melancholy and eccentric’. His later paintings show no falling off in his powers, however, and his work reaches its apotheosis in his celebrated Madonna of the Long Neck (c.1535, Uffizi, Florence). The forms of the figures are extraordinarily elongated and tapering and the painting has a refinement and grace that place it among the archetypal works of Mannerism. Parmigianino's range extended beyond religious works. He painted a highly erotic Cupid Carving his Bow (1535, KH Mus., Vienna), and was one of the subtlest portraitists of his age (two superb examples are in the Mus. di Capodimonte, Naples). The landscape backgrounds to his religious works have a mysterious and visionary quality that influenced Niccolò dell' Abate and through him French art (see Fontainebleau, School of). Parmigianino, whose draughtsmanship was exquisite, also made designs for engravings and chiaroscuro woodcuts and seems to have been the first Italian artist to produce original etchings from his own designs.