Parmigianino, Madonna of the Long Neck, 1530-33
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0:01 - 0:03(piano music)
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0:04 - 0:07So here we're looking at the great mannerist painting
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0:07 - 0:10by Parmigianino, called "The Madonna of the Long Neck".
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0:10 - 0:12It's a fun painting.
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0:12 - 0:13It's a tall painting.
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0:13 - 0:16It's big. And Madonna is big.
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0:16 - 0:18She's big in funny places, too.
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0:18 - 0:21Her head is really tiny.
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0:21 - 0:24Compared to her hips, especially.
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0:24 - 0:26Right, she's got really wide hips.
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0:26 - 0:30She comes down on tiny little toes.
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0:30 - 0:33It's always seemed to me like her body is in the shape of a diamond.
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0:33 - 0:37In a sense, she is a landscape on which Christ sits.
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0:37 - 0:40Christ himself is also quite large.
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0:40 - 0:44It's not just large.
Look at the way he splays his body. -
0:44 - 0:48This is crazy kind of torsion, with his arm falling,
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0:48 - 0:50almost dislocated from his shoulder.
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0:50 - 0:54There is a precedent for that way his left arm falls down.
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0:54 - 0:57If you think about Michelangelo's "Pietà"...
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0:57 - 1:04and Christ here as a child but perhaps echoing when Mary would hold Christ
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1:04 - 1:07in images like the "Pietà" when Christ is dead.
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1:07 - 1:07in images like the Pietà when Christ is dead.
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1:07 - 1:12In fact Christ looks asleep but there's also a way that he looks dead, too.
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1:12 - 1:16That reference in some ways explains the mass of her lap,
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1:16 - 1:20because in that sculpture Mary is quite substantial in order to be able
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1:20 - 1:22to support the dead body of her son.
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1:22 - 1:26It's clear when we're looking at this that we're not in the High Renaissance anymore.
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1:26 - 1:27So what happened?
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1:27 - 1:29Mannerism happened.
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1:29 - 1:31It's almost like the artists of the High Renaissance
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1:31 - 1:33had done everything that could be done.
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1:33 - 1:36They had perfected the naturalism that they had sought after
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1:36 - 1:38since the time of Giotto.
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1:38 - 1:42All of the illusionism that was at the service of the High Renaissance
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1:42 - 1:46is here being used to distort and transform the body.
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1:46 - 1:50It's not so much an ugly deformation as a kind of deformation that accentuates
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1:50 - 1:52a kind of extreme elegance.
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1:52 - 1:54Exactly. It takes that ideal beauty and elegance
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1:54 - 1:55that was in the High Renaissance
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1:55 - 1:58and exaggerates it.
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1:58 - 2:02When we're thinking about Mannerism, we think about it as art taken from art,
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2:02 - 2:04instead of art from nature.
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2:04 - 2:09We think about the Renaissance as being based on observation of nature
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2:09 - 2:10and the natural world,
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2:10 - 2:14but when you look at this you think back to works of art
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2:14 - 2:18like Michelangelo's "Giuliano de' Medici" and that long neck.
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2:18 - 2:20Or back to the "Pietà".
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2:20 - 2:23That makes a lot of sense - the idea that this is art that is self-referential,
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2:23 - 2:25that is referring to its own traditions.
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2:25 - 2:28The respect for human anatomy,
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2:28 - 2:31portraying that naturalistically - that's not important to Mannerists.
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2:31 - 2:35In fact, I think there is a letter from one Mannerist artist to another Mannerist artist
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2:35 - 2:37where he says something like:
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2:37 - 2:40"Take a left hand and put it on a right arm."
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2:40 - 2:43It's like a willful complicating of the body.
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2:43 - 2:47...and setting up relationships between forms that are absurd.
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2:47 - 2:51Look at the relationship between the vase that's being held by the angel
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2:51 - 2:54in relationship to his/her thigh.
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2:54 - 2:58Look at the relationship between the massive Virgin Mary
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2:58 - 3:01and the prophet in the lower-right corner
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3:01 - 3:04that is presumably impossibly far away,
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3:04 - 3:08but somehow just a tiny figure at the feet of the Virgin.
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3:08 - 3:13And look at the way the Virgin holds her hand to her chest,
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3:13 - 3:17with these impossibly long, almost boneless fingers.
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3:17 - 3:22There's a way in which the gesture fails to mean anything.
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3:22 - 3:24It means gesture... and drama...
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3:24 - 3:27as opposed to a specific intent of the figure.
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3:27 - 3:30There's a kind of dramatizing here.
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3:30 - 3:30For its own sake.
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3:30 - 3:31Exactly.
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3:31 - 3:34...with that kind of willful compression
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3:34 - 3:37that creates a sense of almost the impossible.
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3:37 - 3:38If you look at the columns on the right,
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3:38 - 3:41there's actually a colonnade that's so deep in space,
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3:41 - 3:43it's seen at such an oblique angle,
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3:43 - 3:45that it almost seems like a wall or a single column.
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3:45 - 3:47If you look closely at the base,
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3:47 - 3:50you can see the alternating light and shadow
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3:50 - 3:52that passes between those columns.
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3:52 - 3:54There is ambiguity and that's a large part,
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3:54 - 3:56because that part of the painting is not finished.
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3:56 - 3:59So Mannerism seems to be this intense reaction
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3:59 - 4:02to the perfection of the High Renaissance.
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4:02 - 4:05You have the Renaissance building itself
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4:05 - 4:07into a kind of extreme naturalism,
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4:07 - 4:12and then it seems to be a flailing reaction against those strictures.
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4:12 - 4:15Or a sense that there was nowhere to go except to do something really different.
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4:15 - 4:20All these ideas were very much a part of a culture of the court.
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4:20 - 4:25It's important to recognize that there was a very specific, learned audience
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4:25 - 4:26for these kinds of paintings.
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4:26 - 4:30These were not made for the artists' own wild interests.
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4:30 - 4:34This was considered a kind of high intellectual game.
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4:34 - 4:37(piano music)
- Title:
- Parmigianino, Madonna of the Long Neck, 1530-33
- Description:
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Parmigianino, Madonna of the Long Neck, 1530-33, 28 3/4 x 23 1/2" (73 x 60), Uffizi, Florence
Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris
http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/parmigianinos-madonna-of-the-long-neck.html
- Video Language:
- English
- Duration:
- 04:44
Alma Ghita edited English subtitles for Parmigianino, Madonna of the Long Neck, 1530-33 | ||
Alma Ghita edited English subtitles for Parmigianino, Madonna of the Long Neck, 1530-33 | ||
Alma Ghita edited English subtitles for Parmigianino, Madonna of the Long Neck, 1530-33 | ||
Alma Ghita edited English subtitles for Parmigianino, Madonna of the Long Neck, 1530-33 | ||
Alma Ghita edited English subtitles for Parmigianino, Madonna of the Long Neck, 1530-33 | ||
Alma Ghita edited English subtitles for Parmigianino, Madonna of the Long Neck, 1530-33 | ||
Alma Ghita edited English subtitles for Parmigianino, Madonna of the Long Neck, 1530-33 | ||
Alma Ghita edited English subtitles for Parmigianino, Madonna of the Long Neck, 1530-33 |