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Comparison: Perseus Holding the Head of Medusa and Madonna of the Long Neck

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Comparison: Perseus Holding the Head of Medusa and Madonna of the Long Neck
Compare and Contrast ‘Perseus holding the Head of Medusa’ with Parmigianino’s ‘Madonna of the Long Neck’

Benevuto Cellini’s statue of ‘Perseus holding the Head of Medusa’ (Figure 1) and Parmigianino’s painting ‘Madonna of the long neck’ (Figure 2) are both prime examples of Mannerist art. The Mannerists sought to weave a refined, idealized and graceful visual style with arcane, complicated iconography to create artworks of complexity and elegance. This essay will discuss hoe both artists differ in technique and will demonstrate a contrast between the highly political significance of Cellini’s statue and Parmigianino’s religious painting. Throughout my discussion I will also explore how both artists comparatively adopt their own ‘maniera’ as they wilfully complicate the narrative of their traditional subjects. The painting and the sculpture focus on the idealization of the human figure, symbolism, explicit and implicit sexual content all to increase the Mannerist complexity of the art. Ultimately this essay will conclude how both works of art intensify the emotional drama or add literary or visual references so knowledgeable viewers had to work hard to decipher the meaning.

Benevuto Cellini’s bronze statue of Perseus with the head of Medusa stands on a square base in the Loggia dei Lanzi of the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. The subject of his work is derived from the mythological story of Perseus beheading Medusa. The relations of male and female, victorious versus vanquished and oppression versus repression are the fundamental themes of this statue, which at the time of its creation had a deep political meaning.
Parmigianino’s oil painting ‘Madonna of the Long Neck’ dates from 1535 – 1540 and was commissioned as an altarpiece for the church of Santa Maria dei Servi in Parma. The subject of this painting comes from Christianity: Mary holding Christ. The painting has religious significance as it was created for a chapel, evidently dedicated to the



Bibliography: Berfer, John, Ways of Seeing, Penguin UK, 2008 Cole, Michael, Cellini’s Blood’, Art Bulletin, 1991 Dickinson, Fairleigh, The English Mannerist Poets and the Visual Arts, L.E Semler, Eskerdjian, David, Parmigianino, Yale University Press, 2006, Freedberg, Sydney J., Parmigianino: His Works in Painting, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950; reprinted, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976 Fride-Carrassat, Patricia, Great Painters, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2004 Harrison, Charles, An Introduction to Art, Yale University Press, Charles Harrison, 2009 Laneyrie-Dagen, Nadeije, How to Read Paintings 2 The Secrets of the Artist’s Studio, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2004 Laneyrie-Dagen, Nadeije, How to Read Paintings, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2004 Masterpieces of Western Art From the Gothic to Neoclassicism, Taschen, 1996, Sawday, Jonathan The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture, Routledge, 2013 Shearman, John, Only Connect Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance (New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1992 Glover, Michael, Great Works: Madonna of the Long Neck, 1535-40 (219cm x 135cm), Parmigianino, January 2013 Alchemy, Androgyny, and Mannerism: Aspects of Eroticism in the Art of Parmigianino, Joe A Even, Yael, Woman’s Art Journal 12 The Loggia dei Lanzi: a Showcase of Female Subjugation, 1991 Websites

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