The painting is painted in a Mannerist style, in which complexity of composition
takes precedence over the content of the piece. Bronzino was a follower
of Michelangelo and his attempts to further that artist’s use of
contortion of the body led to overly strained and unnatural poses. Mannerism
is best characterised by the modern expression, “style over content”
and it suggests a direction in art that has run out of ideas.
The passionate physicality of Michelangelo’s figures is totally
missing in the work of Bronzino; the next major development in art came
thirty years after the death of Bronzino when Caravaggio
began to paint his dramatically-lit and simplified compositions as part
of a revival of genuine religious feeling in painting.
In a broader context, the mannerist style expresses the demise of Renaissance
ideas. Every movement has a cycle of growth and decay.
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