Madonna with the long neck

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Madonna with the Long Neck (Parmigianino)
Madonna with the long neck
Parmigianino , 1532 to 1540
oil on wood
216 × 132 cm
Uffizi Gallery , Florence

The Madonna with the Long Neck ( Italian: Madonna dal collo lungo) is a painting by Parmigianino . It was created in the first half of the 16th century in the Mannerist style and is considered one of the most important works of art of this direction. In addition, it is the artist's best known, or rather the “most infamous” painting.

history

The picture was created as a commission for a Servite church in Parma . However, it remained unfinished, which can be seen in the background to the right behind the Madonna. This may have been due to Parmigianino's early death in 1540. Different years between 1532 or 1534 and 1540 are named as possible periods for the creation; most of the literature assumes an origin around 1534/1535. The work was in the artist's workshop until his death in 1540. Ferdinando de 'Medici purchased the painting in 1698 .

Art history background and structure

Parmigianino was a student of Correggio , which can also be seen in the figure of the painting. However, he did not adopt its color representation. The picture is - entirely in accordance with Mannerism, which has broken away from the traditional canon of the contemporary High Renaissance - structured unorthodox. Is shown Maria with the sleeping baby Jesus on her lap. You are surrounded on the left by a group of angels looking at the child and on the right side below by a prophet figure . The figure is possibly St. Jerome . He unrolls a scroll . The group of angels has no counterpart on the opposite side, only the column with the indicated row of columns forms a counterweight. This type of composition is understood as a conscious departure from the principle of harmonic composition, so to speak as "renouncing a logical spatial structure". This also corresponds to the depiction of the small prophet figure, although the row of columns indicated, which extends into the depths, somewhat reduces the distance to the main group.

Detail of the torso and head of the Madonna with its rich hair ornament

Presentation and details

The Madonna as well as the baby Jesus and the prophet are shown distorted in length, the picture also gets its name from the excess length of the neck of Mary. This representation of the figures also corresponds to the departure from traditional representations, the principle of artificiality of the representation is equated with the exaggerated elegance of the figures. Much of the painting puzzles art historical research. The column, it is shown without a capital , can be a hint of the stable at Bethlehem in which Jesus was born. The baby Jesus lies in a deep sleep that reminds of death. The figure of the prophet who announces the coming of Jesus Christ can also be seen in connection with this. The meaning of the egg-shaped vase on the left edge of the picture is also unclear. It can represent both an alchemical vessel for the production of gold - Parmigianino dealt intensively with this topic in the last years of his life and also neglected painting over it - but also an allusion from poetry, since it occasionally includes the shoulders, neck and head of a woman a perfectly crafted vase. In addition to being distorted in length, the figure of Mary is also shown slightly rotated: her state seems to be somewhere between sitting and standing because of the lack of a throne. The depiction of her robe is also very unusual. It seems to wrap itself around the body like a wet cloth and emphasizes the feminine element of the figure rather than covering anything.

Rolf Tomann comments on the painting: "As a mysticist conspired by alchemy, he (Parmigianino, author's note) invites the viewer to delve into the seemingly elegant, but deep, entangled, sometimes melancholy world of his pictorial inventions illogically constructed, unreally enchanted spaces of his picture backgrounds ".

The painting hangs today with another major work by Parmigianino, the Madonna di San Zaccaria , and other paintings, mainly by Emilian Mannerists, in room XXIX of the Uffizi in Florence.

literature

  • Wolfgang Braunfels : Small Italian Art History . DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 1984, ISBN 3-7701-1509-0 .
  • Gloria Fossi: Uffizi Gallery. Official guide . translated by Irmgard Krasser, Giunti Editore, Florence 2013, ISBN 978-88-09-78421-5
  • Patrick de Rynck: The art of reading pictures - The old masters decipher and understand , Parthas Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-86601-695-6 .
  • Will Durant : The Splendor and Decay of the Italian Renaissance . Volume 8 from Will and Ariel Durant's cultural history of mankind , 1st edition, Südwest Verlag, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-517-00562-2 .
  • Edgar Lein and Manfred Wundram : Mannerism . Volume 7 of the series "Art Epochs", Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-15-018174-4 .
  • Max Semrau : The Art of the Renaissance in Italy and in the North . 3rd edition, Vol. III from Wilhelm Lübke, Grundriss der Kunstgeschichte , 14th edition, Paul Neff Verlag, Esslingen 1912.
  • Rolf Toman (Ed.): The art of the Italian Renaissance - architecture, sculpture, painting, drawing . Tandem Verlag, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-8331-4582-7 .
  • Stefano Zuffi: The Renaissance - Art, Architecture, History, Masterpieces . DuMont Buchverlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8321-9113-9 .

Web links

Commons : Madonna with the Long Neck  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Braunfels: Little Italian art history. P. 364.
  2. ↑ a b c d de Rynck: The Art of Reading Pictures - The Old Masters deciphering and understanding. P. 172.
  3. ↑ Edgar Lein and Manfred Wundram: Mannerism , p. 193
  4. ↑ so z. B. Braunfels: Little Italian Art History , p. 364
  5. ↑ a b Gloria Fossi. Uffizi. Florence, Giunti 2013, p. 129
  6. ^ Catalog Polo museums in Florence
  7. ↑ Semrau: The Art of the Renaissance in Italy and in the North , p. 324
  8. ↑ a b Toman (Ed.): The art of the Italian Renaissance - architecture, sculpture, painting, drawing , p. 387
  9. ↑ a b c de Rynck, The Art of Reading Pictures - The Old Masters Deciphering and Understanding , p. 173
  10. ↑ Edgar Lein and Manfred Wundram: Mannerism , p. 193
  11. ↑ Edgar Lein and Manfred Wundram: Mannerism , p. 194
  12. ↑ on this in detail: Edgar Lein and Manfred Wundram: Mannerism , p. 194
  13. ↑ Edgar Lein and Manfred Wundram: Mannerism , pp. 193/194
  14. ↑ Durant: Splendor and Decay of the Italian Renaissance , p. 101