Madonna with the Long Neck
The Madonna with the Long Neck ( Italian: Madonna dal collo lungo ) is a painting by Parmigianino. It originated in the first half of the 16th century in the style of Mannerism and is considered one of the most important works of art that direction. In addition, it is the most famous, or rather the " notorious " paintings by the artist.
Order and emergence period
The image was created as a commission for a church of the Servites in Parma. However, it remained unfinished, which can be seen on the image background right behind the Madonna. This may have been due to the early death of Parmigianino 1540. As a possible period for the emergence of various years between 1532 and 1534 and 1540 are called; the literature is mostly based on a creation by 1534/1535.
Shown is Maria with the sleeping Jesus on her lap. They are surrounded on the left side of the child be considered a group of angels, and on the lower right side of a prophet figure. It is in the figure, possibly by St. Jerome. He unrolled a scroll.
Art Historical Background and construction
Parmigianino was a pupil of Correggio, which can also be seen at the Figurgebung of the painting. He took not the color representation. The image is - all according to the voiding of the traditional canon of contemporary High Renaissance Mannerism - unorthodox built. The group of angels has no counterpart on the opposite side, only the single pillar is a little contrast. This type of composition is seen as a deliberate departure from the principle of harmonious composition, as a kind of " waiver of a logical spatial structure ". This is also the representation of the minor prophets figure, although the elongating into the depth hint of a row of columns the distance to the main group decreased slightly.
Presentation and details
The Madonna as well as the Child Jesus and the Prophet are distorted in the length of the excessive length of the neck of Mary has the picture its name. Also, this representation of the figures corresponds to the shift away from traditional representations, the principle of the artificiality of representation is equated with the exaggerated elegance of the figures. Much of the painting is the art historical research on puzzles. The column, it is displayed without capital, can be a outline of the stable at Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. In connection with the figure of the Prophet can be seen that announces the coming of Jesus Christ. Also unclear is the significance of the egg-shaped vase on the left side. You can represent both an alchemical vessel for making gold - Parmigianino dealt in his last years of life intensively with this subject and neglected the painting above - but also a native of the seal hint because there occasionally shoulders, neck and head of a woman with a perfectly crafted vase are compared. The figure of Mary is also shown slightly rotated in addition to the distortion in the length: Her condition appears to be due to the lack of representation of a throne between sitting and standing. Very unusually, the depiction of her robe. It seems like a wet cloth to wrap around the body and emphasizes more the female element in the figure, to conceal as something.
Rolf Tomann noticed about the painting: " As conspired Mystizist of alchemy, it loads ( Parmigianino, author's note ) the viewer to hineinzuversteigen with the true elegant appearing, but deep, folded, sometimes melancholic world of Klee's paintings, in the conscious built illogical, unreal - enchanted spaces of his image backgrounds ".
The painting now hangs with another major work of Parmigianino, the Madonna di San Zaccaria, and other paintings primarily in Mannerist Emilian Hall XXIX of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.