Northern Mannerism
Encyclopedia
Northern Mannerism is the term in European art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

 for the versions of Mannerism
Mannerism
Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...

 practiced in the visual arts north of the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....

 in the 16th and early 17th century. Styles largely derived from Italian Mannerism were found in the Netherlands and elsewhere from around the mid-century, especially Mannerist ornament in architecture; this article concentrates on those times and places where Northern Mannerism generated its most original and distinctive work.

The three main centres of the style were in France, especially in the period 1530-50, in Prague from 1576, and in the Netherlands from the 1580s—the first two phases very much led by royal patronage. In the last fifteen years of the century the style, by then becoming outdated in Italy, was widespread across northern Europe, spread in large part through prints. In painting it tended to recede rapidly in the new century, under the new influence of Caravaggio
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...

 and the early Baroque, but in architecture and the decorative arts, its influence was more sustained.

Background

The sophisticated art of Italian Mannerism begins during the High Renaissance
High Renaissance
The expression High Renaissance, in art history, is a periodizing convention used to denote the apogee of the visual arts in the Italian Renaissance...

 of the 1520s as a development of, a reaction against, and an attempt to excel, the serenely balanced triumphs of that style. As art historian Henri Zerner explains: "The concept of Mannerism—so important to modern criticism and notably to the renewed taste for Fontainebleau art—designates a style in opposition to the classicism of the Italian Renaissance embodied above all by Andrea del Sarto
Andrea del Sarto
Andrea del Sarto was an Italian painter from Florence, whose career flourished during the High Renaissance and early Mannerism. Though highly regarded during his lifetime as an artist senza errori , his renown was eclipsed after his death by that of his contemporaries, Leonardo da Vinci,...

 in Florence and Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

 in Rome".

The High Renaissance was a purely Italian phenomenon, and Italian Mannerism required both artists and an audience highly trained in the preceding Renaissance styles, whose conventions were often flouted in a knowing fashion. In Northern Europe, however, such artists, and such an audience could hardly be found. The prevailing style remained Gothic
Gothic art
Gothic art was a Medieval art movement that developed in France out of Romanesque art in the mid-12th century, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, but took over art more completely north of the Alps, never quite effacing more classical...

, and different syntheses of this and Italian styles were made in the first decades of the 16th century by more internationally-aware artists such as Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...

, Hans Burgkmair
Hans Burgkmair
Hans Burgkmair the elder was a German painter and printmaker in woodcut.Burgkmair was born in Augsburg, the son of painter Thomas Burgkmair and his son, Hans the Younger, became one too. From 1488 he was a pupil of Martin Schongauer in Colmar, who died during his two years there, before Burgkmair...

 and others in Germany, and the misleadingly named school of Antwerp Mannerism
Antwerp Mannerism
Antwerp Mannerism is the name given to the style of a largely anonymous group of painters from Antwerp in the beginning of the 16th century. The style bore no direct relation to Renaissance or Italian Mannerism, but the name suggests a peculiarity that was a reaction to the "classic" style of the...

, in fact unrelated to, and preceding, Italian Mannerism. Romanism
Romanism (painting)
Romanism was the style of painting of a group of artists in the late 15th and early 16th century from the Netherlands who began to visit Italy and started to incorporate Renaissance influences in their work. The greatest artist in the style was Jan Mabuse...

 was more thoroughly influenced by Italian art of the High Renaissance, and aspects of Mannerism, and many of its leading exponents had travelled to Italy. Netherlandish painting had been generally the most advanced in northern Europe since before 1400, and the best Netherlandish artists were better able than those of other regions to keep up with Italian developments, though lagging at a distance.

For each succeeding generations of artists, the problem became more acute, as much Northern work continued to gradually assimilate aspects of Renaissance style, while the most advanced Italian art had spiralled into an atmosphere of self-conscious sophistication and complexity that must have seemed a world apart to Northern patrons and artists, but enjoyed a reputation and prestige that could not be ignored.

France

France received a direct injection of Italian style in the form of the first School of Fontainebleau
School of Fontainebleau
The Ecole de Fontainebleau refers to two periods of artistic production in France during the late Renaissance centered around the royal Château de Fontainebleau, that were crucial in forming the French version of Northern Mannerism....

, where from 1530 several Florentine artists of quality were hired to decorate the royal palace of Fontainebleau, with some French assistants being taken on. The most notable imports were Rosso Fiorentino
Rosso Fiorentino
Giovanni Battista di Jacopo , known as Rosso Fiorentino , or Il Rosso, was an Italian Mannerist painter, in oil and fresco, belonging to the Florentine school.-Biography:...

 (Giovanni Battista di Jacopo de' Rossi, 1494–1540), Francesco Primaticcio
Francesco Primaticcio
Francesco Primaticcio was an Italian Mannerist painter, architect and sculptor who spent most of his career in France.-Biography:...

 (c.1505-1570), Niccolò dell'Abbate
Niccolò dell'Abbate
Nicolò dell' Abate, sometimes Niccolò, was an Italian painter and decorator. He was of the Emilian school, and was part of the staff of artists called the School of Fontainebleau that introduced the Italianate Renaissance to France.-Biography:Niccolò dell'Abbate was born in Modena, the son of a...

 (c.1509-1571), all of whom remained in France until their deaths. This conjunction succeeded in generating a native French style with strong Mannerist elements that was then able to develop largely on its own. Jean Cousin the Elder
Jean Cousin the Elder
Jean Cousin was a French painter, sculptor, etcher, engraver, and geometrician. He is known as "Jean Cousin the Elder" to distinguish him from his son Jean Cousin the Younger, also an artist.-Career:...

, for example, produced paintings, such as Eva Prima Pandora and Charity, that, with their sinuous, elongated nudes, drew palpably upon the artistic principles of the Fontainebleau school. Cousin's son Jean the Younger, most of whose works have not survived, and Antoine Caron
Antoine Caron
Antoine Caron was a French master glassmaker, illustrator, Northern Mannerist painter and a product of the School of Fontainebleau.He is one of the few French painters of his time who had a pronounced artistic personality...

 both followed in this tradition, producing an agitated version of the Mannerist aesthetic in the context of the French Wars of Religion
French Wars of Religion
The French Wars of Religion is the name given to a period of civil infighting and military operations, primarily fought between French Catholics and Protestants . The conflict involved the factional disputes between the aristocratic houses of France, such as the House of Bourbon and House of Guise...

. The iconography
Iconography
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...

 of figurative works was mostly mythological, with a strong emphasis on Diana
Diana (mythology)
In Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of the hunt and moon and birthing, being associated with wild animals and woodland, and having the power to talk to and control animals. She was equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, though she had an independent origin in Italy...

, goddess of the hunting that was the original function of Fontainebleau, and namesake of Diane de Poitiers
Diane de Poitiers
Diane de Poitiers was a French noblewoman and a prominent courtier at the courts of kings Francis I and his son, Henry II of France. She became notorious as the latter's favourite mistress...

, mistress and muse of Henry II
Henry II of France
Henry II was King of France from 31 March 1547 until his death in 1559.-Early years:Henry was born in the royal Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, the son of Francis I and Claude, Duchess of Brittany .His father was captured at the Battle of Pavia in 1525 by his sworn enemy,...

, and keen huntress herself. Her slim, long-legged and athletic figure "became fixed in the erotic imaginary".

Other parts of Northern Europe did not have the advantage of such intense contact with Italian artists, but the Mannerist style made its presence felt through prints and illustrated books, the purchases of Italian works by rulers and others, artists' travels to Italy, and the example of individual Italian artists working in the North.

Much of the most important work at Fontainebleau was in the form of stucco
Stucco
Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...

 relief
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...

s, often executed by French artists to drawings by the Italians (and then reproduced in prints), and the Fontainebleau style affected French sculpture more strongly than French painting. The huge stucco frames which dominate their inset paintings with bold high-relief strapwork
Strapwork
In the history of art and design, the term strapwork refers to a stylised representation in ornament of strips or bands of curling leather, parchment or metal cut into elaborate shapes, with piercings and often interwoven...

, swags of fruit, and generous staffage of naked nymph-like figures, were very influential on the vocabulary of Mannerist ornament all over Europe, spread by ornament books and prints by Androuet du Cerceau
Androuet du Cerceau
Androuet du Cerceau was a family of French architects and designers active in the 16th and early 17th century.*Jacques I Androuet du Cerceau *Jean Baptiste Androuet du Cerceau...

 and others—Rosso seems to have been the originator of the style. High-style walnut furniture made in metropolitan centers like Paris and Dijon, employed strapwork framing and sculptural supports in dressoirs and buffets. The mysterious and sophisticated Saint-Porchaire ware
Saint-Porchaire ware
Saint-Porchaire ware is the earliest very high quality French pottery. It is white faience ware that was made for a restricted French clientele from the 1520s to the 1540s. Only about sixty pieces of this ware survive, all of them well known before World War II. None have turned up in the last...

, of which only about sixty pieces survive, brought a similar aesthetic into pottery.

Apart from the Palace of Fontainebleau itself, other important buildings decorated in the style were the Château d'Anet
Château d'Anet
The Château d'Anet is a château near Dreux, France, built by Philibert de l'Orme from 1547 to 1552 for Diane de Poitiers, the mistress of Henry II of France...

 (1547–52) for Diane de Poitiers, and parts of the Palais du Louvre
Palais du Louvre
The Louvre Palace , on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, is a former royal palace situated between the Tuileries Gardens and the church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois...

. Catherine de' Medici's patronage of the arts
Catherine de' Medici's patronage of the arts
Catherine de' Medici's patronage of the arts made a significant contribution to the French Renaissance. Catherine was inspired by the example of her father-in-law, King Francis I of France , who had hosted the leading artists of Europe at his court. As a young woman, she witnessed at first hand the...

 promoted the Mannerist style, except in portraiture, and her court festivities
Catherine de' Medici's court festivals
Catherine de' Medici's court festivals were a series of lavish and spectacular entertainments, sometimes called "magnificences", laid on by Catherine de' Medici, the queen consort of France from 1547 to 1559 and queen mother from 1559 until her death in 1589...

 were the only regular northern ones to rival the intermedio
Intermedio
The intermedio, or intermezzo, in the Italian Renaissance, was a theatrical performance or spectacle with music and often dance which was performed between the acts of a play to celebrate special occasions in Italian courts. It was one of the important predecessors to opera, and an influence on...

s and entries
Royal Entry
The Royal Entry, also known by various other names, including Triumphal Entry and Joyous Entry, embraced the ceremonial and festivities accompanying a formal entry by a ruler or his representative into a city in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period in Europe...

 of the Medici
Medici
The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...

 court in Florence; all of which relied heavily on the visual arts. After an interlude when work on Fontainebleau was abandoned at the height of the French Wars of Religion, a "Second School of Fontainebleau" was formed from local artists in the 1590s.

Prague under Rudolf II

Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian II was king of Bohemia and king of the Romans from 1562, king of Hungary and Croatia from 1563, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation from 1564 until his death...

 (reigned 1564–1576), who made his base in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, had humanist
Renaissance humanism
Renaissance humanism was an activity of cultural and educational reform engaged by scholars, writers, and civic leaders who are today known as Renaissance humanists. It developed during the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, and was a response to the challenge of Mediæval...

 and artistic tastes, and patronised a number of artists, mostly famously Giambologna
Giambologna
Giambologna, born as Jean Boulogne, incorrectly known as Giovanni da Bologna and Giovanni Bologna , was a sculptor, known for his marble and bronze statuary in a late Renaissance or Mannerist style.- Biography :...

 and Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Giuseppe Arcimboldo was an Italian painter best known for creating imaginative portrait heads made entirely of such objects as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, and books – that is, he painted representations of these objects on the canvas arranged in such a way that the whole collection of...

, whose fantasy portraits made up of objects were slightly more serious in the world of late-Renaissance philosophy than they seem now. At the end of his reign he devised a project for a new palace and just before he died the young Flemish painter Bartholomeus Spranger
Bartholomeus Spranger
Bartholomeus Spranger was a Flemish Northern Mannerist painter, draughtsman, and etcher. He was born in Antwerp in the Habsburg Netherlands .-Biography:...

 had been summoned from Rome, where he had made a successful career. Maximilian's son, Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor
Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor
Rudolf II was Holy Roman Emperor , King of Hungary and Croatia , King of Bohemia and Archduke of Austria...

 was to prove an even better patron than his father would have been, and Spranger never left his service. The court soon transferred to Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

, safer from the regular Turkish invasions, and during his reign of 1576-1612, Rudolf was to become an obsessive collector of old and new art, his artists mixing with the astronomers, clockmakers, botanists, and "wizards, alchemists and kabbalists" who Rudolf also gathered around him.

Works from Rudolf's Prague were highly finished and refined, with most paintings being relatively small. The elongation of figures and strikingly complex poses of the first wave of Italian Mannerism were continued, and the elegant distance of Bronzino's figures was mediated through the works of the absent Giambologna, who represented the ideal of the style.
Prints
Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...

 were essential to disseminate the style to Europe, Germany and the Low Countries in particular, and some printmakers, like the greatest of the period, Hendrik Goltzius
Hendrik Goltzius
Hendrik Goltzius , was a Dutch printmaker, draftsman, and painter. He was the leading Dutch engraver of the early Baroque period, or Northern Mannerism, noted for his sophisticated technique and the "exuberance" of his compositions. According to A...

, worked from drawings sent from Prague, while others, like Aegidius Sadeler
Aegidius Sadeler
The Sadeler family were the largest, and probably the most successful of the dynasties of Flemish engravers that were dominant in Northern European printmaking in the later 16th and 17th centuries, as both artists and publishers...

 who lived in Spranger's house, had been tempted to the city itself. Rudolf also commissioned work from Italy, above all from Giambologna, who the Medicis would not allow to leave Florence, and four great mythological allegories were sent by Paolo Veronese
Paolo Veronese
Paolo Veronese was an Italian painter of the Renaissance in Venice, famous for paintings such as The Wedding at Cana and The Feast in the House of Levi...

. The Emperor's influence affected art in other German courts, notably Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

, and Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

 where the goldsmith and artist Johann Kellerthaler was based.

Rudolf was relatively little interested in religion, and "in the Prague of Rudolf II an explosion of mythological imagery was produced that had not been seen since Fontainebleau". Goddesses were usually naked, or nearly so, and a more overt atmosphere of eroticism prevails than is found in most Renaissance mythological works, evidently reflecting Rudolf's "special interests".
The dominating figure was Hercules
Hercules
Hercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...

, identified with the emperor, as he had earlier been with earlier Habsburg
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...

 and Valois monarchs. But the other gods were not neglected; their conjunctions and transformations had significance in Renaissance Neo-Platonism and Hermeticism
Hermeticism
Hermeticism or the Western Hermetic Tradition is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon the pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus...

 that were taken more seriously in Rudolf's Prague than any other Renaissance court. It seems, however, that the painted allegories from Prague contain neither very specific complicated meanings, nor hidden recipes for alchemy. Giambologna frequently chose, or let someone else choose, a title for his sculptures after their completion; for him it was only the forms that mattered.

Netherlands Mannerism

Whereas the artists of both Fontainebleau and Prague were mostly provided with a home so congenial in both intellectual and physical terms that they stayed to the end of their lives, for artists of the last Netherlandish phase of the movement Mannerism was very often a phase through which they passed before moving on to a style influenced by Caravaggio
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...

.

For Hendrik Goltzius
Hendrik Goltzius
Hendrik Goltzius , was a Dutch printmaker, draftsman, and painter. He was the leading Dutch engraver of the early Baroque period, or Northern Mannerism, noted for his sophisticated technique and the "exuberance" of his compositions. According to A...

, the greatest printmaker of the day, his most Mannerist phase under the influence of Spranger only lasted for the five years between 1585, when he engraved his first print after one of the Spranger drawings brought from Prague by Karel van Mander, to his trip to Rome in 1590, from which he "returned a changed artist. From this time on he no longer made prints after Spranger's extravaganzas. The monstrous muscle-men and over-elongated female nudes with tiny heads ... were replaced by figures with more normal proportions and movements." Spranger's work "had a wide and immediate effect in the Northern Netherlands", and the group known as the "Haarlem Mannerists", principally Goltzius, van Mander, and Cornelis van Haarlem
Cornelis van Haarlem
Cornelis Corneliszoon van Haarlem , Dutch Golden Age painter and draughtsman, was one of the leading Northern Mannerist artists in The Netherlands, and an important forerunner of Frans Hals as a portraitist.-Biography:...

 was matched by artists in other cities.
Partly because most of his Netherlandish followers had only seen Spranger's work through prints and his mostly very free drawings, his more painterly handling was not adopted, and they retained the tighter and more realistic technique in which they had been trained. Many Dutch mannerist painters could switch styles depending on subject or commission, and continued to produce portraits and genre scenes in styles based on local traditions at the same time they were working on highly Mannerist paintings. After his return from Italy Goltzius moved to a quieter proto-Baroque classicism, and his work in that style influenced many.

Joachim Wtewael
Joachim Wtewael
Joachim Anthonisz Wtewael , was a notable Dutch painter and engraver.Wtewael was born and died in Utrecht, where he began his career engraving glass with his father...

, who settled in Utrecht
Utrecht (city)
Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...

 after returning from Italy in 1590, drew more influence from Italian Mannerists than from Prague, and also continued to produce kitchen scenes and portraits alongside his naked deities. Unlike many, notably his fellow Utrecher Abraham Bloemaert
Abraham Bloemaert
Abraham Bloemaert was a Dutch painter and printmaker in etching and engraving. He was one of the "Haarlem Mannerists" from about 1585, but in the new century altered his style to fit new Baroque trends...

, once Wtewael's repertoire of styles was formed, he never changed it until his death in 1631.
For painters in the Low Countries there was also the alternative of traditional Northern realist styles, which had continued to develop through Pieter Bruegel the Elder (d.1567) and other artists, and in the next century were to dominate the painting of the Dutch Golden Age
Dutch Golden Age
The Golden Age was a period in Dutch history, roughly spanning the 17th century, in which Dutch trade, science, military and art were among the most acclaimed in the world. The first half is characterised by the Eighty Years' War till 1648...

. Despite his visit to Italy, Brughel certainly cannot be called a Mannerist, but just as his paintings were keenly collected by Rudolf, Mannerist artists, including Gillis van Coninxloo
Gillis van Coninxloo
Gillis van Coninxloo was a Dutch painter of forest landscapes, the most famous member of a large family of artists. He travelled through France, and lived in Germany for several years to avoid religious persecution....

 and Bruegel's son Jan, followed him in developing the landscape as a subject.

Landscape painting was recognised as a Netherlandish speciality in Italy, where several Northern landscapists were based, such as Paul and Mattheus Brill
Paul and Mattheus Brill
Paul and Matthijs Bril were brothers, both born in Antwerp, who were landscape painters who worked in Rome after earning papal favor.-Biography:...

, and the Germans Hans Rottenhammer
Hans Rottenhammer
Johann Rottenhammer, or Hans Rottenhammer, was a German painter. He specialized in highly finished paintings on a small scale.-Biography:He was born in Munich, where he studied until 1588 under Hans Donauer the Elder...

 and Adam Elsheimer
Adam Elsheimer
Adam Elsheimer was a German artist working in Rome who died at only thirty-two, but was very influential in the early 17th century. His relatively few paintings were small scale, nearly all painted on copper plates, of the type often known as cabinet paintings. They include a variety of light...

, the last an important figure in the Early Baroque. Most still painted Netherlandish panoramas from a high view-point, with small figures forming a specific subject, but Gillis van Coninxloo followed the earlier Danube School
Danube school
The Danube School or Donau School is the name of a circle of painters of the first third of the 16th century in Bavaria and Austria . Many also were innovative printmakers, usually in etching...

 and Albrecht Altdorfer
Albrecht Altdorfer
Albrecht Altdorfer was a German painter, printmaker and architect of the Renaissance era.-Biography:Altdorfer was born in Regensburg or Altdorf around 1480....

 in developing the pure and "close-up" forest landscape in his works from about 1600, which was taken up by his pupil Roelandt Savery and others. Bloemaert painted many landscapes reconciling these types by combining close-up trees, with figures, and a small distant view from above to one side (example below). Paul Brill's early landscapes were distinctly Mannerist in their artificiality and crowded decorative effects, but after his brother's death, he gradually evolved a more economical and realistic style, perhaps influenced by Annibale Carracci
Annibale Carracci
Annibale Carracci was an Italian Baroque painter.-Early career:Annibale Carracci was born in Bologna, and in all likelihood first apprenticed within his family...

.
Still-life painting, usually mostly of flowers and insects, also emerged as a genre during the period, re-purposing the inherited tradition of late Netherlandish miniature
Miniature (illuminated manuscript)
The word miniature, derived from the Latin minium, red lead, is a picture in an ancient or medieval illuminated manuscript; the simple decoration of the early codices having been miniated or delineated with that pigment...

 borders; Jan Brueghel the Elder
Jan Brueghel the Elder
Jan Brueghel the Elder was a Flemish painter, son of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and father of Jan Brueghel the Younger. Nicknamed "Velvet" Brueghel, "Flower" Brueghel, and "Paradise" Brueghel, of which the latter two were derived from his floral still lifes which were his favored subjects, while the...

 also painted these. Such subjects appealed to both aristocratic patrons and the bourgeois market, which was far larger in the Netherlands. This was especially so in the Protestant north, after the movement of populations in the Revolt, where the demand for religious works was largely absent.

Karel van Mander is now remembered mainly as a writer on art rather than an artist. Though he endorsed the Italian hierarchy of genres
Hierarchy of genres
A hierarchy of genres is any formalization which ranks different genres in an art form in terms of their prestige and cultural value....

, with history painting
History painting
History painting is a genre in painting defined by subject matter rather than an artistic style, depicting a moment in a narrative story, rather than a static subject such as a portrait...

 at the top, he was readier than Vasari and other Italian theorists (above all Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...

, who was brusquely dismissive of 'lower' forms of art) to accept the value of other specialized genres of art, and to accept that many artists should specialize in these, if that is where their talent lay. Specialization of many artists in the various genres was well advanced by the end of the century, in both the Netherlands and Prague, exemplified by Bruegel's two sons, Jan
Jan Brueghel the Elder
Jan Brueghel the Elder was a Flemish painter, son of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and father of Jan Brueghel the Younger. Nicknamed "Velvet" Brueghel, "Flower" Brueghel, and "Paradise" Brueghel, of which the latter two were derived from his floral still lifes which were his favored subjects, while the...

 and Pieter
Pieter Brueghel the Younger
Pieter Brueghel the Younger /ˈpitəɾ ˈbɾøːxəl/ was a Flemish painter, known for numerous copies after his father Pieter Brueghel the Elder's paintings and nicknamed "Hell Brueghel" for his fantastic treatments of fire and grotesque imagery.-Life:Pieter Brueghel the Younger was the oldest son of the...

, though it was also typical of the period that they both had more than one speciality during their careers. Although landscapes, scenes of peasant life, sea-scapes and still-lifes could be bought by dealers for stock, and good portraits were always in demand, demand for history painting was not equal to the potential supply, and many artists, like Cornelius Ketel, were forced to specialize in portraiture; "artists travel along this road without delight", according to van Mander.

The Mannerist painters in the now permanently-separated southern provinces of Habsburg
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...

 Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

 in fact were less influenced by Prague than those in the United Provinces
Dutch Republic
The Dutch Republic — officially known as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands , the Republic of the United Netherlands, or the Republic of the Seven United Provinces — was a republic in Europe existing from 1581 to 1795, preceding the Batavian Republic and ultimately...

. They had more easy access to Italy, where Denis Calvaert
Denis Calvaert
Denis Calvaert was a Flemish painter born at Antwerp, but lived most of his life in Italy, where he was known as Il Fiammingo . Calvaert was a profound student of architecture, anatomy, and history, exceedingly accurate in perspective and graceful in design...

 lived from the age of twenty in Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

, though selling much of his work back to Flanders. Both Marten de Vos
Marten de Vos
Marten de Vos , also Maarten, was a leading Antwerp painter and draughtsman in the late sixteenth century.-Biography:Like Frans Floris, he travelled to Italy and adopted the mannerist style popular at the time. De Vos was also highly influenced by the colors of Venetian painting, and might have...

 and Otto van Veen
Otto van Veen
Otto van Veen, also known by his Latinized name Otto Venius or Octavius Vaenius, was a painter, draughtsman, and humanist active primarily in Antwerp and Brussels in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century...

 had travelled there; Van Veen, who had actually worked in Rudolf's Prague, was the founder of the Guild of Romanists
Guild of Romanists
The Guild of Romanists was a 16th and 17th century society in Antwerp for humanist and artists; it was a condition of membership that the member had visited Rome. Deans were appointed annually. It was "where 'art-pilgrims' met to keep themselves up to date on news from Rome, whether it be new...

, an Antwerp club for artists who had visited Rome. They were more conscious of recent trends in Italian art, and the emergence of Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 style, which in the hands of Van Veen's pupil from 1594–98, Rubens
Rubens
Rubens is often used to refer to Peter Paul Rubens , the Flemish artist.Rubens may also refer to:- People :Family name* Paul Rubens Rubens is often used to refer to Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), the Flemish artist.Rubens may also refer to:- People :Family name* Paul Rubens (composer) Rubens is...

, would soon sweep over Flemish art. In religious works, Flemish artists were also subject to the decrees of the Council of Trent
Council of Trent
The Council of Trent was the 16th-century Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church. It is considered to be one of the Church's most important councils. It convened in Trent between December 13, 1545, and December 4, 1563 in twenty-five sessions for three periods...

, leading to a reaction against the more extreme virtuosities of Mannerism and to a clearer, more monumental style akin to the Italian maniera grande. In the retable
Retable
A retable is a framed altarpiece, raised slightly above the back of the altar or communion table, on which are placed the cross, ceremonial candlesticks and other ornaments....

s of de Vos, for example, "a tempered Mannerism is combined with a preference for narrative that is more in line with Netherlandish tradition".

In Flanders, though not in the United Provinces, the mostly temporary displays for royal entries provided occasional opportunities for lavish public exhibitions of Mannerist style. Festival books recorded the entries into Antwerp of French princes and Habsburg archdukes.

Poland-Lithuania

Mannerism was dominant in Poland-Lithuania
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...

 between 1550 and 1650, when it was finally replaced by the Baroque. The style includes various mannerist
Mannerism
Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...

 traditions, which are closely related with ethnic and religious diversity of the country, as well as with its economic and political situation at that time. The period between 1550 and 1650 was a Golden Age of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (created in 1569) and a Golden Age of Poland. The first half of the 17th century is marked by strong activity of the Jesuits
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...

 and Counter-Reformation
Counter-Reformation
The Counter-Reformation was the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 as a response to the Protestant Reformation.The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort, composed of four major elements:#Ecclesiastical or...

, which led to banishing of progressive Arians (Polish Brethren) in 1658.

Dissemination in prints and books

The importance of prints as a medium for disseminating mannerist style has already been mentioned; Northern Mannerism "was a style that lent itself admirably to printmaking, and inspired the production of a succession of masterpieces of the printmaker's art". Goltzius was already the most celebrated engraver in the Netherlands when the Mannerist virus struck, and despite the disruptions of war he and other Netherlandish printmakers were connected with the well-oiled machinery of distribution across Europe that had been built up over the preceding fifty years, originally centred on Antwerp.

The same had not been true for the printmaking at Fontainebleau, and the prints made there (unusually for the period, all in etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...

) were technically rather rough, produced in smaller numbers, and mainly influential in France. They were made in an intense period of activity approximately from 1542 to 1548. Those made in Paris were engraving
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...

s and of a higher quality; produced from about 1540 to about 1580, they had a wider distribution. Many of the Fontainebleau prints were apparently made directly from drawn designs for the decorations of the palace, and consisted largely or entirely of ornamental frames or cartouches, although such was the scale of Fontainebleau that these might contain several full-length figures. Variations on the elaborate framings, as if made of cut, pierced and rolled parchment, played out in decorative framing schemes, engraved title pages and carved and inlaid furniture into the seventeenth century.

Printed Mannerist ornament, in a somewhat broader sense of the word, was a good deal easier to produce than the risky application of an extreme Mannerist style to large figure compositions, and had been spreading across Europe well in advance of painting in the form of frames to portrait prints, book frontispiece
Book frontispiece
A frontispiece is a decorative illustration facing a book's title page. The frontispiece is the verso opposite the recto title page. Elaborate engraved frontispieces were in frequent use, especially in Bibles and in scholarly books, and many are masterpieces of engraving...

s, so like the elaborate doorways and fireplaces of Mannerist architecture, ornament books for artists and craftsmen, and emblem book
Emblem book
Emblem books are a category of mainly didactic illustrated book printed in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, typically containing a number of emblematic images with explanatory text....

s. From these and works in their own medium, goldsmiths, frame and furniture makers, and workers in many other crafts developed the vocabulary of Mannerist ornament. Wendel Dietterlin
Wendel Dietterlin
Wendel Dietterlin , sometimes Wendel Dietterlin the Elder, to distinguish him from his son, was a German mannerist painter, printmaker and architectural theoretician...

's book Architectura of 1593-4, produced in the relative backwater of Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...

, was the most extreme application of the style to architectural ornament.

In the decorative arts

The visual wit and sophistication of Mannerism in northern hands, which made it pre-eminently a court
Noble court
The court of a monarch, or at some periods an important nobleman, is a term for the extended household and all those who regularly attended on the ruler or central figure...

 style, found natural vehicles in goldsmith's work, set off by gems and colored enamels, in which the misshaped pearls we call "baroque" might form human and animal torsos, both as jewelry for personal adornment and in objects made for the Wunderkammer. Ewers and vases took fantastic shapes, as did standing cups with onyx or agate bowls, and elaborate saltcellars like the Saliera
Saliera
The Cellini Salt Cellar is a part-enamelled gold table sculpture by Benvenuto Cellini. It was completed in 1543 for Francis I of France, from models that had been prepared many years earlier for Cardinal Ippolito d'Este...

 of Benvenuto Cellini
Benvenuto Cellini
Benvenuto Cellini was an Italian goldsmith, sculptor, painter, soldier and musician, who also wrote a famous autobiography. He was one of the most important artists of Mannerism.-Youth:...

, the apex of Mannerist goldsmithing, completed in 1543 for Francis I and later given to Rudolf's uncle
Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria
Ferdinand II, Archduke of Further Austria was ruler of Further Austria including Tirol.-Life account:...

, another great collector. Wenzel Jamnitzer
Wenzel Jamnitzer
Wenzel Jamnitzer was a Northern Mannerist goldsmith, artist, and printmaker in etching, who worked in Nuremberg...

 and his son Hans, goldsmiths to a succession of Holy Roman Emperors, including Rudolf, were unexcelled in the north. Silversmiths made covered cups and richly-wrought ewers and platters, strictly for display, perhaps incorporating the large sea-shells now being brought back from the tropics, which were "cherished as Art produced by Nature". In the Netherlands a uniquely anamorphic "auricular style", employing writhing and anti-architectural cartilaginous motifs was developed by the van Vianen family of silversmiths.
Though Mannerist sculptors produced life-size bronzes, the bulk of their output by unit was of editions of small bronzes, often reduced versions of the large compositions, which were intended to be appreciated by holding and turning in the hands, when the best "give an aesthetic stimulus of that involuntary kind that sometimes comes from listening to music". Small low relief
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...

 panels in bronze, often gilded, were used in various settings, as on Rudolph's crown.

Female sphinxes
Sphinx
A sphinx is a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head or a cat head.The sphinx, in Greek tradition, has the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird, and the face of a woman. She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless...

 with extravagantly elongated necks and prominent breasts support a Burgundian cabinet of walnut in the Frick Collection
Frick Collection
The Frick Collection is an art museum located in Manhattan, New York City, United States.- History :It is housed in the former Henry Clay Frick House, which was designed by Thomas Hastings and constructed in 1913-1914. John Russell Pope altered and enlarged the building in the early 1930s to adapt...

, New York; soon Antwerp made a specialty of richly carved and veneered cabinets inlaid with tortoiseshell, ebony, and ivory, with architectural interiors, mirrored to multiply reflections in feigned spaces. In England the Mannerist excesses of Jacobean furniture were expressed in extreme legs turned to imitate stacked covered standing cups, and a proliferation of enlaced strapwork
Strapwork
In the history of art and design, the term strapwork refers to a stylised representation in ornament of strips or bands of curling leather, parchment or metal cut into elaborate shapes, with piercings and often interwoven...

 covered plane surfaces. Painters were called upon to design cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...

s in Mannerist style for the tapestry
Tapestry
Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven on a vertical loom, however it can also be woven on a floor loom as well. It is composed of two sets of interlaced threads, those running parallel to the length and those parallel to the width ; the warp threads are set up under tension on a...

 workshops of Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

 and Paris, and painterly compositions in Mannerist taste appeared in Limoges enamel
Limoges enamel
Limoges enamel was produced at Limoges, France, already the most famous, but not the most high quality, European center of vitreous enamel production by the 12th century; its works were known as Opus de Limogia or Labor Limogiae...

s too. Moresque
Moresque
Moresque is an obsolete alternative term to "Moorish" in English, and in the arts has some specific meanings. By itself the word is used of forms found in ornament and decoration in the applied arts in Europe. Often it is a synonym for arabesque or interlace patterns in the Mannerist and Northern...

s, swags and festoon
Festoon
Festoon , a wreath or garland, and so in architecture a conventional arrangement of flowers, foliage or fruit bound together and suspended by ribbons, either from a decorated knot, or held in the mouths of lions, or suspended across the back of bulls heads as...

s of fruit were employed in an ornamental vocabulary descended from Gothic
Gothic art
Gothic art was a Medieval art movement that developed in France out of Romanesque art in the mid-12th century, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, but took over art more completely north of the Alps, never quite effacing more classical...

 illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

 borders and rediscovered Ancient Roman grotesque
Grotesque
The word grotesque comes from the same Latin root as "Grotto", meaning a small cave or hollow. The original meaning was restricted to an extravagant style of Ancient Roman decorative art rediscovered and then copied in Rome at the end of the 15th century...

 ornament.

In France, Saint-Porchaire ware
Saint-Porchaire ware
Saint-Porchaire ware is the earliest very high quality French pottery. It is white faience ware that was made for a restricted French clientele from the 1520s to the 1540s. Only about sixty pieces of this ware survive, all of them well known before World War II. None have turned up in the last...

 of Mannerist forms and decor was produced in limited quantities for a restricted fashion-conscious clientele from the 1520s to the 1540s, while the crowded, disconcertingly lifelike compositions of snakes and toads characterize the Mannerist painted earthenware
Earthenware
Earthenware is a common ceramic material, which is used extensively for pottery tableware and decorative objects.-Types of earthenware:Although body formulations vary between countries and even between individual makers, a generic composition is 25% ball clay, 28% kaolin, 32% quartz, and 15%...

 platters of Bernard Palissy
Bernard Palissy
Bernard Palissy was a French Huguenot potter, hydraulics engineer and craftsman, famous for having struggled for sixteen years to imitate Chinese porcelain...

. Like the Jamnitzers on occasion, Palissy made moulds from real small creatures and plants to apply to his creations.

Northern Mannerism, politics and religion

Northern Europe in the 16th century, and especially those areas where Mannerism was at its strongest, was affected by massive upheavals including the Protestant Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

, Counter-Reformation
Counter-Reformation
The Counter-Reformation was the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 as a response to the Protestant Reformation.The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort, composed of four major elements:#Ecclesiastical or...

, French Wars of Religion
French Wars of Religion
The French Wars of Religion is the name given to a period of civil infighting and military operations, primarily fought between French Catholics and Protestants . The conflict involved the factional disputes between the aristocratic houses of France, such as the House of Bourbon and House of Guise...

 and Dutch Revolt
Dutch Revolt
The Dutch Revolt or the Revolt of the Netherlands This article adopts 1568 as the starting date of the war, as this was the year of the first battles between armies. However, since there is a long period of Protestant vs...

. The relationship between Mannerism, religion and politics was very complex. Although religious works were produced, Northern Mannerist art de-emphasized religious subjects, and when it did treat them was usually against the spirit both of the Counter-Reformation attempt to control Catholic art and Protestant views on religious imagery.

In the case of Rudolf's Prague and French art after the mid-century, secular and mythological Mannerist art seems to have been partly a deliberate attempt to produce an art that appealed across religious and political divides. At the same time, Mannerism at its most extreme was usually a court style, often used to propagandize for the monarchy, and it risked becoming discredited through association with unpopular rulers. While Rudolf's genuine tolerance seems to have avoided this in Germany and Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

, by the end of the century Mannerism had become associated by the Calvinist Protestants and other patriots of France and the Netherlands with their unpopular Catholic rulers.
Certain Mannerist works seem to echo the violence of the time, but dressed in classical clothing. Antoine Caron
Antoine Caron
Antoine Caron was a French master glassmaker, illustrator, Northern Mannerist painter and a product of the School of Fontainebleau.He is one of the few French painters of his time who had a pronounced artistic personality...

 painted the unusual subject of Massacres under the Triumvirate
First Triumvirate
The First Triumvirate was the political alliance of Gaius Julius Caesar, Marcus Licinius Crassus, and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. Unlike the Second Triumvirate, the First Triumvirate had no official status whatsoever; its overwhelming power in the Roman Republic was strictly unofficial influence, and...

 (1562, Louvre), during the Wars of Religion, when massacres were a frequent occurrence, above all in the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572, six years after the painting. According to art historian Anthony Blunt
Anthony Blunt
Anthony Frederick Blunt , was a British art historian who was exposed as a Soviet spy late in his life.Blunt was Professor of the History of Art at the University of London, director of the Courtauld Institute of Art, Surveyor of the King's Pictures and London...

, Caron produced "what is perhaps the purest known type of Mannerism in its elegant form, appropriate to an exquisite but neurotic aristocratic society". His cartoons for the Valois Tapestries
Valois Tapestries
The Valois Tapestries are a series of eight tapestries depicting festivities or "magnificences" at the Court of France in the second half of the 16th century. The tapestries were worked in the Spanish Netherlands, probably in Brussels or Antwerp, shortly after 1580.Scholars have not firmly...

, which hark back to the triumphalist History of Scipio tapestries designed for Francis I
Francis I of France
Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...

 by Giulio Romano
Giulio Romano
Giulio Romano was an Italian painter and architect. A pupil of Raphael, his stylistic deviations from high Renaissance classicism help define the 16th-century style known as Mannerism...

, were a propaganda exercise on behalf of the Valois monarchy, emphasizing its courtly splendour at the time of its threatened destruction through civil war. Jean Cousin the Younger's only surviving painting, The Last Judgement, also comments on the civil war, betraying a "typically mannerist penchant for miniaturization". Tiny, naked human beings "swarm over the earth like worms", while God looks down in judgement from above.
Cornelis van Haarlem's Massacre of the Innocents
Massacre of the Innocents
The Massacre of the Innocents is an episode of infanticide by the King of Judea, Herod the Great. According to the Gospel of Matthew Herod orders the execution of all young male children in the village of Bethlehem, so as to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn King of the Jews whose birth...

 (1590, Rijksmuseum
Rijksmuseum
The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam or simply Rijksmuseum is a Dutch national museum in Amsterdam, located on the Museumplein. The museum is dedicated to arts, crafts, and history. It has a large collection of paintings from the Dutch Golden Age and a substantial collection of Asian art...

), more Baroque than Mannerist, may involve his childhood memories of the killings (in fact only of the garrison) after the Siege of Haarlem
Siege of Haarlem
The siege of Haarlem was an episode of the Eighty Years' War. From December 11, 1572 to July 13, 1573 an army of Philip II of Spain laid bloody siege to the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands, whose loyalties had begun wavering during the previous summer...

 in 1572-3, which he lived through. Brughel's completely un-mannerist version of the same subject was bought by Rudolf, who had someone turn many of the massacred children into geese, calves, cheeses, and other less disturbing spoils. In general, Mannerist painting emphasizes peace and harmony, and less often chooses battle subjects than either the High Renaissance or the Baroque.

Another subject popularized by Brughel, Saint John Preaching in the Wilderness, was given Mannerist treatments by several artists, as a lush landscape subject. But for Dutch Protestants the subject recalled the years before and during their Revolt, when they were forced to congregate for services in the open countryside outside towns controlled by the Spanish.

Other outcrops

Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

 had been spurred in emulation of Fontainebleau to import his own, rather less stellar, team of Italians and French artists
Artists of the Tudor court
The artists of the Tudor court are the painters and limners engaged by the monarchs of England's Tudor dynasty and their courtiers between 1485 and 1603, from the reign of Henry VII to the death of Elizabeth I....

 to work on his new Nonsuch Palace
Nonsuch Palace
Nonsuch Palace was a Tudor royal palace, built by Henry VIII in Surrey, England; it stood from 1538 to 1682–3. Its ruins are in Nonsuch Park.- Background :Nonsuch Palace in Surrey was perhaps the grandest of Henry VIII's building projects...

, which also relied heavily on stuccoes, and was decorated from about 1541. But Henry died before it was completed and a decade later it was sold by his daughter Mary
Mary I of England
Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...

 without ever having seen major use by the court. The palace was destroyed before 1700 and only small fragments of work associated with it have survived, as well as a faint ripple of influence detectable in later English art, for example in the grand but unsophisticated stuccoes at Hardwick Hall
Hardwick Hall
Hardwick Hall , in Derbyshire, is one of the most significant Elizabethan country houses in England. In common with its architect Robert Smythson's other works at both Longleat House and Wollaton Hall, Hardwick Hall is one of the earliest examples of the English interpretation of the Renaissance...

.

The portrait miniaturist Isaac Oliver
Isaac Oliver
Isaac Oliver was a French-born English portrait miniature painter.-Life and work:Born in Rouen, he moved to London in 1568 with his Huguenot parents Peter and Epiphany Oliver to escape the Wars of Religion in France...

 shows tentative Late Mannerist influence, which also appears in some immigrant portrait painters, such as William Scrots
William Scrots
William Scrots was a painter of the Tudor court and an exponent of the Mannerist style of painting in the Netherlands. He is first heard of when appointed a court painter to Mary of Habsburg, Regent of the Netherlands, in 1537...

, but generally England was one of the countries least affected by the movement except in the area of ornament.

Though Northern Mannerism achieved a landscape style, portrait-painting remained without Northern equivalents of Bronzino or Parmigianino
Parmigianino
Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola , also known as Francesco Mazzola or more commonly as Parmigianino or sometimes "Parmigiano", was an Italian Mannerist painter and printmaker active in Florence, Rome, Bologna, and his native city of Parma...

, unless the remarkable but somewhat naive Portraiture of Elizabeth I is considered as such.

One of the last flowerings of Northern Mannerism came in Lorraine
Lorraine (province)
The Duchy of Upper Lorraine was an historical duchy roughly corresponding with the present-day northeastern Lorraine region of France, including parts of modern Luxembourg and Germany. The main cities were Metz, Verdun, and the historic capital Nancy....

, whose court painter Jacques Bellange
Jacques Bellange
Jacques Bellange was an artist and printmaker from the Duchy of Lorraine whose etchings and some drawings are his only securely identified works today. They are among the most striking Mannerist old master prints, mostly on Catholic religious subjects, and with a highly individual style...

 (c.1575-1616) is now known only from his extraordinary etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...

s, though he was also a painter. His style derives from Netherlandish Mannerism, though his technique from Italian etchers, especially Barocci and Ventura Salimbeni
Ventura Salimbeni
Ventura di Archangelo Salimbeni was an Italian Mannerist painter and printmaker and among the last representatives of a style influenced by the earlier Sienese School of Quattrocento-Renaissance....

. Unusually, his subjects were mainly religious, and though the costumes are often extravagant, suggest intense religious feelings on his part.

Artists

French artists influenced by the first School of Fontainebleau:
Jean Cousin the Elder
Jean Cousin the Elder
Jean Cousin was a French painter, sculptor, etcher, engraver, and geometrician. He is known as "Jean Cousin the Elder" to distinguish him from his son Jean Cousin the Younger, also an artist.-Career:...

 (1500-c. 1590)
Jean Goujon
Jean Goujon
Jean Goujon was a French Renaissance sculptor and architect.-Biography:His early life is little known; he was likely born in Normandy and may have traveled in Italy...

 (c. 1510-after 1572) sculptor and architect
Juste de Juste
Juste de Juste
Juste de Juste was a Franco-Italian sculptor and printmaker in etching, a member of the Betti family of sculptors from near Florence, who became known as the Juste family in France, where Juste de Juste's father Antonio and his two brothers emigrated and spent most of their careers...

 (ca. 1505 – ca. 1559) - sculptor and etcher
Antoine Caron
Antoine Caron
Antoine Caron was a French master glassmaker, illustrator, Northern Mannerist painter and a product of the School of Fontainebleau.He is one of the few French painters of his time who had a pronounced artistic personality...

 (1521 - 1599)


The continuing French tradition:
Germain Pilon
Germain Pilon
Germain Pilon was a French Renaissance sculptor.-Biography:He was born in Paris. Trained by his father and Pierre Bontemps, Pilon was an expert with marble, bronze, wood and terra cotta; from about 1555 he was providing models for Parisian goldsmiths...

 (c. 1537 - 1590), sculptor
Androuet du Cerceau
Androuet du Cerceau
Androuet du Cerceau was a family of French architects and designers active in the 16th and early 17th century.*Jacques I Androuet du Cerceau *Jean Baptiste Androuet du Cerceau...

, family of architects; Jacques I introducing Mannerist ornament
Jean Cousin the Younger (ca. 1522-1595), painter
Toussaint Dubreuil
Toussaint Dubreuil
Toussaint Dubreuil was a French painter associated with the second School of Fontainebleau...

 (c. 1561 - 1602), second School of Fontainebleau:


Working for Rudolf:
Giambologna
Giambologna
Giambologna, born as Jean Boulogne, incorrectly known as Giovanni da Bologna and Giovanni Bologna , was a sculptor, known for his marble and bronze statuary in a late Renaissance or Mannerist style.- Biography :...

 (1529-1608), Flemish sculptor based in Florence
Adriaen de Vries
Adriaen de Vries
Adriaen de Vries was a Northern Mannerist sculptor born in the Netherlands, whose international style crossed the threshold to the Baroque; he excelled in refined modelling and bronze casting and in the manipulation of patina and became the most famous European sculptor of his generation...

 (1556-1626), Flemish sculptor, pupil of Giambologna, who went to Prague
Bartholomeus Spranger
Bartholomeus Spranger
Bartholomeus Spranger was a Flemish Northern Mannerist painter, draughtsman, and etcher. He was born in Antwerp in the Habsburg Netherlands .-Biography:...

 (1546-1611) - Flemish painter, Rudolf's main painter
Hans von Aachen
Hans von Aachen
Hans von Aachen , was a German mannerist painter.-Biography:He was born in Cologne, but his name is derived from the birthplace of his father, Aachen in Germany...

 (1552-1615) - German, mythological subjects and portraits for Rudolf
Joseph Heintz the Elder (1564-1609) - Swiss pupil of Hans von Aachen
Paul van Vianen, Dutch silversmith and artist
Aegidius Sadeler
Aegidius Sadeler
The Sadeler family were the largest, and probably the most successful of the dynasties of Flemish engravers that were dominant in Northern European printmaking in the later 16th and 17th centuries, as both artists and publishers...

 - mainly a printmaker
Wenzel Jamnitzer
Wenzel Jamnitzer
Wenzel Jamnitzer was a Northern Mannerist goldsmith, artist, and printmaker in etching, who worked in Nuremberg...

 (1507/8-1585), and his son Hans II and grandson Christof, German goldsmiths
Joris Hoefnagel
Joris Hoefnagel
Joris Hoefnagel or Georg Hoefnagel was a Flemish painter and engraver, the son of a diamond merchant.He travelled abroad, making drawings from archaeological subjects, and was a pupil of Hans Bol at Mechlin...

, especially for miniatures of natural history
Roelant Savery
Roelant Savery
Roelant Savery , was a Flanders-born Dutch Golden Age painter.-Life:Savery was born in Kortrijk...

, landscapes with animals and still-lifes


In the Netherlands:
Herri met de Bles
Herri met de Bles
Herri met de Bles was a Flemish Northern Renaissance and Mannerist landscape painter...

, (1510-1555/60), landscape artist, earlier than the others
Karel van Mander - now best known as a biographer of Netherlandish artists
Hendrik Goltzius
Hendrik Goltzius
Hendrik Goltzius , was a Dutch printmaker, draftsman, and painter. He was the leading Dutch engraver of the early Baroque period, or Northern Mannerism, noted for his sophisticated technique and the "exuberance" of his compositions. According to A...

 (1558-1617) - the leading engraver of the period, and later a painter in a less Mannerist style.
Cornelis van Haarlem
Cornelis van Haarlem
Cornelis Corneliszoon van Haarlem , Dutch Golden Age painter and draughtsman, was one of the leading Northern Mannerist artists in The Netherlands, and an important forerunner of Frans Hals as a portraitist.-Biography:...

 (1562-1651)
Joachim Wtewael
Joachim Wtewael
Joachim Anthonisz Wtewael , was a notable Dutch painter and engraver.Wtewael was born and died in Utrecht, where he began his career engraving glass with his father...

 (1566-1638)
Jan Saenredam
Jan Saenredam
Jan Pieterszoon Saenredam , was a Dutch Northern Mannerist painter, printmaker in engraving, and cartographer, and father of the painter of church interiors, Pieter Jansz Saenredam...

 - mainly a printmaker
Jacob de Gheyn II
Jacob de Gheyn II
Jacob de Gheyn II was a Dutch painter and engraver, whose work shows the transition from Northern Mannerism to Dutch realism over the course of his career.-Biography:...

 - mainly a printmaker
Abraham Bloemaert
Abraham Bloemaert
Abraham Bloemaert was a Dutch painter and printmaker in etching and engraving. He was one of the "Haarlem Mannerists" from about 1585, but in the new century altered his style to fit new Baroque trends...

 (1566-1651), in the early part of his career
Hans Vredeman de Vries
Hans Vredeman de Vries
Hans Vredeman de Vries was a Dutch Renaissance architect, painter, and engineer. Vredeman de Vries is known for his publication in 1583 on garden design and his books with many examples on ornaments and perspective ....

 (1527 – c. 1607), architect, ornament designer, who wrote on garden design.


Flemish:
Denis Calvaert
Denis Calvaert
Denis Calvaert was a Flemish painter born at Antwerp, but lived most of his life in Italy, where he was known as Il Fiammingo . Calvaert was a profound student of architecture, anatomy, and history, exceedingly accurate in perspective and graceful in design...

 - worked mostly in Italy, in a largely Italian style, as did
Paul and Mattheus Brill
Paul and Mattheus Brill
Paul and Matthijs Bril were brothers, both born in Antwerp, who were landscape painters who worked in Rome after earning papal favor.-Biography:...

, mostly painting landscapes
Marten de Vos
Marten de Vos
Marten de Vos , also Maarten, was a leading Antwerp painter and draughtsman in the late sixteenth century.-Biography:Like Frans Floris, he travelled to Italy and adopted the mannerist style popular at the time. De Vos was also highly influenced by the colors of Venetian painting, and might have...

, founder of the Guild of Romanists
Guild of Romanists
The Guild of Romanists was a 16th and 17th century society in Antwerp for humanist and artists; it was a condition of membership that the member had visited Rome. Deans were appointed annually. It was "where 'art-pilgrims' met to keep themselves up to date on news from Rome, whether it be new...

Otto van Veen
Otto van Veen
Otto van Veen, also known by his Latinized name Otto Venius or Octavius Vaenius, was a painter, draughtsman, and humanist active primarily in Antwerp and Brussels in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century...

, (1556-1629)

Elsewhere:
Hans Rottenhammer
Hans Rottenhammer
Johann Rottenhammer, or Hans Rottenhammer, was a German painter. He specialized in highly finished paintings on a small scale.-Biography:He was born in Munich, where he studied until 1588 under Hans Donauer the Elder...

 (1564–1625) landscapist from Munich, spent several years in Italy
Wendel Dietterlin
Wendel Dietterlin
Wendel Dietterlin , sometimes Wendel Dietterlin the Elder, to distinguish him from his son, was a German mannerist painter, printmaker and architectural theoretician...

 (c. 1550-1599), German painter, best known for his book on architectural decoration
Jacques Bellange
Jacques Bellange
Jacques Bellange was an artist and printmaker from the Duchy of Lorraine whose etchings and some drawings are his only securely identified works today. They are among the most striking Mannerist old master prints, mostly on Catholic religious subjects, and with a highly individual style...

 (c. 1575-1616), court painter of Lorraine, whose work only survives in etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...

.

See also

  • Northern Renaissance
    Northern Renaissance
    The Northern Renaissance is the term used to describe the Renaissance in northern Europe, or more broadly in Europe outside Italy. Before 1450 Italian Renaissance humanism had little influence outside Italy. From the late 15th century the ideas spread around Europe...

  • Renaissance in the Low Countries
  • Elizabethan furniture
    Elizabethan furniture
    Elizabethan furniture is the form which the Renaissance took in England in furniture and general ornament, and in furniture it is as distinctive a form as its French and Italian counterparts.- Gradual emergence :...

  • Mannerist architecture and sculpture in Poland
    Mannerist architecture and sculpture in Poland
    Mannerist architecture and sculpture in Poland dominated between 1550 and 1650, when it was finally replaced with baroque. The style includes various mannerist traditions, which are closely related with ethnic and religious diversity of the country, as well as with its economic and political...


External links

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