(Italian for ‘ serpentine figure’) is a style in painting and sculpture, intended to make the figure seem more dynamic, that is typical of

Mannerism Mannerism, which may also be known as Late Renaissance, is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Ital ...

. It is similar, but not identical, to contrapposto, and features figures often in a

spiral In mathematics, a spiral is a curve which emanates from a point, moving farther away as it revolves around the point. Helices Two major definitions of "spiral" in the American Heritage Dictionary are: 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, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested on ...

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 ...

and

Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was ins ...

. Emil Maurer writes of the painter and theorist Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo (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 in 1506, and its deep impact on all artists, but on Michelangelo in particular. John Shearman also argues that it was invented by Michelangelo, citing the "Victors" that he produced for Pope Julius II's tomb. Maurer, on the other hand, can only detect this style rarely in Michelangelo's work and cites

Beccafumi Domenico di Pace Beccafumi (1486May 18, 1551) was an Italian Renaissance-Mannerist painter active predominantly in Siena. He is considered one of the last undiluted representatives of the Sienese school of painting. Biography Domenico was born ...

instead as its pioneer. Beccafumi's student

Marco Pino Marco Pino or Marco da Siena (1521–1583) was an Italian painter of the Renaissance and Mannerist period. Born in Costalpino and first trained in Siena, he later worked in Rome and in Naples, where he died. He was putatively a pupil of the pain ...

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 Paolo Pino (1534–1565) was an Italian painter and art writer. He was born in Venice. A student of Giovanni Gerolamo Savoldo Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo, also called Girolamo da Brescia (c. 1480–1485 – after 1548), was an Italian High Renai ...

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 Gian Lorenzo (or Gianlorenzo) Bernini (, , ; Italian Giovanni Lorenzo; 7 December 159828 November 1680) was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was more prominently the leading sculptor of his ...

'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 Bernin ...

''.

Bibliography

Emil Maurer Emil or Emile may refer to: Literature *''Emile, or On Education'' (1762), a treatise on education by Jean-Jacques Rousseau * ''Émile'' (novel) (1827), an autobiographical novel based on Émile de Girardin's early life *''Emil and the Detective ...

: ''Manierismus: Figura serpentinata und andere Figurenideale : Studien, Essays, Berichte'', 2001, * John Shearman: '' Mannerism''. Art and Architecture series. London : Penguin Books, 1991, *

Jacques Bousquet Jacques Bousquet (1883–1939) was a French actor and screenwriter.Waldman p.43 Selected filmography * '' Dancing Mad'' (1925) * '' A Gentleman of the Ring'' (1926) * '' Rendezvous'' (1930) * ''Love Songs'' (1930) * ''My Wife's Teacher'' (1930) * ...

: ''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