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Francesco Parmigianino

Born – Parma, Italy 1503

Died – Casalmaggiore, Italy 1540

An artist who displayed his prodigious talent at an early age, Francesco Parmigianino took his name from Parma, his birth place. He was a contemporary o Correggio, who also worked in Parma for much of his life. Both men separately worked on commissions for the frescoes in the chapels of St Giovanni Evangelista. Parmigianino went to Rome in 1523. Here his dramatic and intense style, with its propensity for distortion, started to reveal a softer and more graceful influence from Raphael and Michelangelo. He moved to Bologna four years later, when Rome was sacked by German troops. Returning to Parma in 1531, the last ten years of his life were spent in bitter dispute over his failure to complete frescoes for the church of Sta Maria della Steccata. Madonna with Saint Zacharias reveals, through its flowing robes and disproportionate group of figures, the Mannerist elongation of forms for which Parmigianino is renowned. The unusual and imaginative composition includes the remarkable portrait of the old man o the right of the painting, sitting staring into space as spectator to the scene rather than active participant.

Masterpieces:

• Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
• Madonna with the Long Neck

Text: The A-Z of Art, Nicola Hodge and Libby Anson.

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