(Italian for ‘ serpentine figure’) is a style in painting and sculpture, intended to make the figure seem more dynamic, that is typical of Mannerism. It is similar, but not identical, to

contrapposto ''Contrapposto'' () is an Italian term that means "counterpoise". It is used in the visual arts to describe a human figure standing with most of its weight on one foot, so that its shoulders and arms twist off-axis from the hips and legs in the ...

, and features figures often in a spiral pose. Early examples can be seen in the work of

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...

Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual a ...

and Michelangelo. Emil Maurer writes of the painter and theorist

Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo Gian Paolo Lomazzo (26 April 1538 – 27 January 1592; his first name is sometimes also given as "Giovan" or "Giovanni") was an Italian artist and writer on art. Praised as a painter, Lomazzo wrote about artistic practice and art theory after ...

(1538–1600): "The recommended ideal form unites, after Lomazzo, three qualities: the pyramid, the movement and a certain numerical proportion, all three united to form one whole. At the same time, precedence is given to the "moto", that is, to the meandering movement, which should make the pyramid, in exact proportion, into the geometrical form of a cone." Laokoon-Gruppe-02

Bousquet holds that the style arose as a result of the discovery of the

Laocoön group Laocoön (; grc, , Laokóōn, , gen.: ), is a figure in Greek and Roman mythology and the Epic Cycle. Laocoon was a Trojan priest. He and his two young sons were attacked by giant serpents, sent by the gods. The story of Laocoön has been the s ...

in 1506, and its deep impact on all artists, but on Michelangelo in particular.

John Shearman John Kinder Gowran Shearman (pronounced "Sherman"; 24 June 1931 – 11 August 2003) was an English art historian who also taught in America. He was a specialist in Italian Renaissance painting, described by his colleague James S. Ackerman as "th ...

also argues that it was invented by Michelangelo, citing the "Victors" that he produced for

Pope Julius II's tomb The Tomb of Pope Julius II is a sculptural and architectural ensemble by Michelangelo and his assistants, originally commissioned in 1505 but not completed until 1545 on a much reduced scale. Originally intended for St. Peter's Basilica, the str ...

. Maurer, on the other hand, can only detect this style rarely in Michelangelo's work and cites Beccafumi instead as its pioneer. Beccafumi's student Marco Pino connected Beccafumi's style with those of Salviati,

Parmigianino Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola (11 January 150324 August 1540), also known as Francesco Mazzola or, more commonly, as Parmigianino (, , ; "the little one from Parma"), was an Italian Mannerist painter and printmaker active in Florence, Rome, B ...

and perhaps even Michelangelo, and his work as a whole is marked by motifs. Paolo Pino himself says in his ''Dialogo della Pittura'', that his figures' poses are many and varied, and that in all his works to find one single figure, that completely and utterly distorts, is ambivalent and difficult. As Maurer writes, painters are freer than sculptors and less closely tied-down to nature. Thus, they can play around with their figures, reshaping, overstretching, geometricising, dissolving, caricaturing, colouring, or meandering according to the painting's goal and intended effect. With the loosening of the norms of the

Renaissance art Renaissance art (1350 – 1620 AD) is the painting, sculpture, and decorative arts of the period of European history known as the Renaissance, which emerged as a distinct style in Italy in about AD 1400, in parallel with developments which occ ...

and the development of the "Serpentita" style, that style's structures and rules began to be systematised. A style of form began by which figures showed physical power, passion, tension and semantic perfection. Movements were not without motivation, nor even simply done with a will, but with will shown in a pure form. Also their actions arose not out of power, but powerlessness. The style exerted an influence even into the 1620s, with Bernini's ''

The Rape of Proserpina ''The Rape of Proserpina'' ( it, Ratto di Proserpina), more accurately translated as ''the Abduction of Proserpina'', is a large Baroque marble group sculpture by Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, executed between 1621 and 1622, when Berni ...

''.

Bibliography

* Emil Maurer: ''Manierismus: Figura serpentinata und andere Figurenideale : Studien, Essays, Berichte'', 2001, *

: '' Mannerism''. Art and Architecture series. London : Penguin Books, 1991, * Jacques Bousquet: ''Mannerism: The Painting and Style of the Late Renaissance'', New York, 1964, translated by Simon Watson Taylor

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Figura Serpentinata History of sculpture Painting Mannerism Art history Composition in visual art