The Entombment (pg. 661) and Madonna with the Long Neck (pg. 662) are two paintings that hold characteristics of mannerism. The both have some unnatural elements within the painting, and there are dreamy expressions on the faces of the people within the painting. But appearance of each one is very different.
Both of these paintings have some unnatural elements. The Entombment, all the people look very, one might say dreamy. I personally think it comes across of sad, worried, and miserable. About half of the people’s mouths are all slightly open, as if they were moaning. Their eyes are painting very drastically in whichever pose they are taking on. This painting is also very unnatural because there is no horizon line, like many of the humanistic paintings in the past. The people look as if they are piled on one another. To me, making it look like they climbing on one another as if they were trying to get always from something. Overall, I feel it is a depression painting. The Madonna with the Long Neck also shows many unnatural elements. First off, from the title of the piece, your eye is drawn to the main woman in the painting, and her neck is very long compared to the average human neck. It makes her look much taller then she would be, with a normal neck. At the lower right hand corner of the painting is a man. He is very unnatural looking, considering his height reaches only part way up the woman’s calf. He seems to be rolling out cloth of some sort, a very random man in an odd placement in the painting. The Madonna with the Long Neck also has unnatural dreamy expressions. I find these faces to be less… creepy than The Entombment painting, but they are unnatural nonetheless. The most obvious dreamy expression in the Madonna with the Long Neck is the child standing next to the woman; her expression is upward, staring dreamily up at the women, a very unnatural body language and facial expression, to me at least.
The Entombment painting is painted as if it is watercolor almost. The bodies and clothing of the people in the painting makes the paint look like watercolors. The shapes are not nearly as detailed and realistic as the humanistic time period, but very much stylized in the mannerism elegance. Madonna with the Long Neck is slightly more realistic in the technique that was used, or the people in the painting look a bit more realistic then The Entombment, but still not as humanistic as they did in the humanist time period. There are not blemishes on the people, and the detail is not as prominent as the humanistic period, which I guess is what makes it part of the mannerism time period.
Overall these The Entombment and Madonna with the Long neck both come across as very unnatural, and stylized. The Entombment is not pleasing to look at all for me personally. But the Madonna with the Long Neck seems to be much more attractive and interesting.
The entombment painting struck me immediately because it looks as if it were painted in watercolor it has a luminous effect that makes it sort of watery. This gives it a completely different feel than any of the other paintings studied thus far. All the other mannerist elements you point out especially the mouths I also noticed. The Madonna with the long neck is overall a really sort of creepy image and in some ways it strikes me as almost erotic. I see the mannerist style leading toward the baroque and then the rococo what some might call scandalous paintings. What gets me with the Madonna is how the child is so excessively large and almost dead looking, one of the onlookers appears to be enthralled with the Madonna’s nipple which is highlighted to the extreme. Call me odd but her nipple under fabric was the first thing I saw and then I moved my eyes around the image looking at the other elements. I enjoyed your discussion.
ReplyDeleteI think that the elongation of these figures also contributes to the unnatural elements in both paintings. Like Rori said, the Christ child is excessively large in this painting, almost to the point of perversion (in my opinion).
ReplyDelete-Prof. Bowen
I think that the glazed-over look that the figures in the Entombment express is very captivating for some eerie reason to me. Though both paintings are beautiful, I am more interested in the Entombment because of the uncomfortable tension that it creates to it's viewers which seems to hold interest around the entire piece. One of the most unusual parts about the Madonna painting in my opinion is the detail in the background of the piece such as the pillar jutting up to connect to nothing as well as the chair that Madonna looks to be sitting on that does't seem to exist.
ReplyDeleteThe color of The Entombment strikes me as well, and as Prof. Bowen had said, is another element of the unusual elements. The elongated bodies are of the mannerism style, and also seem to influence the 'uncomfortable tension' within this piece. I think it is very interesting that the figure within the Entombment seem to be floating as if almost in a dream. Even the figure closest to the bottom holding up Christ seems to almost not be touching the ground.
ReplyDeleteI don't much like mannerist paintings in general, but I did notice that the textures of cloth in almost all the paintings is quite detailed, much like the Flemish paintings of the northern renaissance. I find that the drift away from realistic proportions and perspective also reminds me of the northern renaissance. The main difference I see is the intentionally disproportionate bodies compared to the less stylized form of the bodies in the Northern Renaissance.
ReplyDeleteI also decided to compare these to pieces. I think they are very troubling almost disturbing really. I completely agree with you that the Madonna with the Long Neck is a lot more pleasing to look at than The Entombment. I wonder if it is because of all the commotion going on in the piece? Or maybe the odd use of bright colors to dark? No matter what way, the viewer still gets this unusual feeling when looking at the piece.
ReplyDelete