Figura serpentinata
Figura serpentinata ( Italian: serpentinato "serpentine", to serpentina "serpentine") is the name for a sinuous, painted or three-dimensional figure. In ornamentation , it is specifically used to describe spiral motifs .
The figura serpentinata is a typical feature of the late Renaissance and Mannerism . Early depictions of such screwed figures come from Leonardo da Vinci , Raffael and Michelangelo . The painter and theorist Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo (1558–1600) judged in his Trattato dell'arte della pittura from 1584:
“According to Lomazzo, the recommended ideal of shape combines three qualities: pyramid shape, ‹serpentinata› movement and a certain numerical proportion, all three brought into one unit. The priority is given to the 'moto', ie the winding movement, while the pyramid shape, in precise proportions, should make up the conical stereometric outline. "
The Serpentinata style developed, as Bousquet suspects, with the rediscovery of the Laocoon group in 1506. This sculpture is said to have left a strong impression on Michelangelo in particular. Shearman is also certain that the figura serpentinata is an invention of Michelangelo. The “victor” that Michelangelo (1527–1528) created for the tomb of Julius II serves as proof .
According to the art historian Joachim Poeschke , Michelangelo's use of the figura serpentinata is thematically determined, while in Mannerism and the late Renaissance the motif is formally determined, for example in Giambologna's sculptures The Robbery of the Sabine Women (1581–83) and Mercury (1564–80).
Emil Maurer , however, can rarely see a serpentine figure in Michelangelo's work. He sees Beccafumi as a pioneer of the Serpentinata style. His student Marco Pino probably combined the impressions of his master with those from Salviatis , Parmigianinos and possibly also Michelangelo's works. All his work is characterized by serpentinata motifs. Paolo Pino himself says in his Dialogo della Pittura that the pose of the characters should be varied and graceful, and that in all of his works at least one character should be included that is utterly twisted, ambivalent and difficult.
Painting, freer than sculpture, which is very much committed to nature, can, as Maurer emphasizes, play with the figure. She can redesign, stretch, geometrize, dissolve, caricature, color, meander, depending on the aim and message of the picture. With the relaxation of Renaissance norms and the development of the Serpentinata style, a systematization of the Serpentinata structures took place, as Maurer argues. A uniformity occurred, as a result of which the figures lost physical strength, passion, tension and semantic conciseness. Movements appear unmotivated, not driven by a will, but by a pure will to form. Also, their actions sometimes seem powerless, not subject to gravity and leverage.
literature
- Jacques Bousquet: Painting of Mannerism. The art of Europe from 1520 to 1620 . Munich 1963.
- Emil Maurer : Mannerism. Figura serpentinata and other ideals of figures . Zurich 2001. ISBN 3-85823-791-4
- John Shearman : Mannerism. The artificial in art. Frankfurt am Main 1988. ISBN 3-610-08513-4
- David Summers: Maniera and Movement. The Figura Serpentinata . In: The Art Quarterly, 35/1 (1972), pp. 269-301.
- Joachim Poeschke : The Art of the Italian Renaissance . P. 237.
Individual evidence
- ^ Rolf Toman : The Art of the Italian Renaissance, p. 237.