Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, when the Baroque style largely replaced it. Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century.
Henry II was King of France from 1547 until his death in 1559. The second son of Francis I and Duchess Claude of Brittany, he became Dauphin of France upon the death of his elder brother Francis in 1536.
Giambologna, also known as Jean de Boulogne (French), Jehan Boulongne (Flemish) and Giovanni da Bologna (Italian), was the last significant Italian Renaissance sculptor, with a large workshop producing large and small works in bronze and marble in a late Mannerist style.
Cosimo I de' Medici was the second and last duke of Florence from 1537 until 1569, when he became the first grand duke of Tuscany, a title he held until his death.
The Loggia dei Lanzi, also called the Loggia della Signoria, is a building on a corner of the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, Italy, adjoining the Uffizi Gallery. It consists of wide arches open to the street. The arches rest on clustered pilasters with Corinthian capitals. The wide arches appealed so much to the Florentines that Michelangelo proposed that they should be continued all around the Piazza della Signoria.
Pietro Tacca was an Italian sculptor, who was the chief pupil and follower of Giambologna. Tacca began in a Mannerist style and worked in the Baroque style during his maturity.
Hercules and Cacus is an Italian Renaissance sculpture in marble to the right of the entrance of the Palazzo Vecchio in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence, Italy.
York House was one of a series of grand mansions that formerly stood on the Strand, the principal route from the City of London to the Palace of Westminster.
Jacques Jonghelinck was a Flemish sculptor and medallist working in Brussels in the Mannerist style common to the Catholic courts of Western Europe.
Pierre Francqueville, generally called Pietro Francavilla, was a Franco-Flemish sculptor trained in Florence, who provided sculpture for Italian and French patrons in the elegant Late Mannerist tradition established by Giambologna.
Baroque sculpture is the sculpture associated with the Baroque style of the period between the early 17th and mid 18th centuries. In Baroque sculpture, groups of figures assumed new importance, and there was a dynamic movement and energy of human forms—they spiralled around an empty central vortex, or reached outwards into the surrounding space. Baroque sculpture often had multiple ideal viewing angles, and reflected a general continuation of the Renaissance move away from the relief to sculpture created in the round, and designed to be placed in the middle of a large space—elaborate fountains such as Gian Lorenzo Bernini‘s Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, or those in the Gardens of Versailles were a Baroque speciality. The Baroque style was perfectly suited to sculpture, with Bernini the dominating figure of the age in works such as The Ecstasy of St Theresa (1647–1652). Much Baroque sculpture added extra-sculptural elements, for example, concealed lighting, or water fountains, or fused sculpture and architecture to create a transformative experience for the viewer. Artists saw themselves as in the classical tradition, but admired Hellenistic and later Roman sculpture, rather than that of the more "Classical" periods as they are seen today.
Pierino da Vinci, born Pier Francesco di Bartolomeo di Ser Piero da Vinci, was an Italian sculptor, born in the small town of Vinci in Tuscany; he was the nephew of Leonardo da Vinci.
Samson was a character in the Biblical Book of Judges. He is said to have been raised up by God to deliver the Israelites from the Philistines. In the story, God grants him unusual strength, which is facilitated by a Nazirite vow prohibiting him from cutting his hair. His strength and violent temper are illustrated in several colorful stories portraying him as dominant over man and nature. He also succeeds in his charge to battle the Philistines, more through acts of personal vengeance than by any formal military strategy. Eventually the Philistines defeat him by bribing his new love interest, Delilah, into extracting from him the secret to his strength. Once learned, the Philistines cut his hair while he sleeps, at which point he is easily defeated.
Female Figure is a near life-size 16th century marble statue by the Flemish sculptor Giambologna. It measures 114.9 cm and depicts an unidentified woman who may be Bathsheba, Venus or another mythological person. The work dates from 1571 to 1573, early in the artist's career, and has been held by the J. Paul Getty Museum since 1982. The woman is nude save for a bracelet on her upper left arm and a discarded garment covering her lap. She sits on a column draped with cloths, holding a jar in one hand, drying her left foot with the other.
The Palacio de la Ribera was the summer residence of Philip III in Valladolid. It was built in the 17th century (1602-1605) as part of a process of urban transformation upon the establishment of the Spanish Court in Valladolid between 1601 and 1606. The palace was situated at the Huerta del Rey neighborhood, located across the Parque de las Moreras on the right bank of the Pisuerga river. The palace grounds extended from the Puente Mayor to Ribera de Don Periáñez del Corral and delimited at both sides by the Pisuerga river and the Camino del Monasterio del Prado. The palace was gradually abandoned until it became part of the destroyed cultural heritage of Valladolid in 1761. Some ruins of the building are still preserved.
The Bathing Venus is a large bronze sculpture attributed to Giambologna (1529-1608), the leading late Renaissance sculptor in Europe. Archival documents suggest that it was presented to King Henri IV of France with other bronzes as a diplomatic gift from Ferdinando I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, to embellish the gardens of the Royal castle in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Giambologna's Triton in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a Mercury in the Louvre were likely to have been also part of this grand-ducal gift. The bronze Venus is a second, remodelled and rethought version of a marble Venus, the so-called Bathsheba, by the same artist, which, after its rediscovery, entered the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1982. The bronze Venus reappeared around 1960 in the possession of a scrap-metal dealer near Paris, who seemed to have obtained it from the Château de Chantemesle in Corbeil-Essonnes (Île-de-France), which had been demolished in the same years. After having been first described as a Swedish late 17th century aftercast of the Getty Venus, the bronze is today internationally recognized by leading scholars as an autograph work by Giambologna. The German expert for Florentine sculpture Nicole Hegener considered the rediscovery of the bronze Bathing Venus as “the kind of sensation that occurs only once a century”.
Florence Triumphant over Pisa is an Italian Renaissance sculpture by Giambologna, existing in two versions, as well as a small wax modello. The first is a full-size modello in gesso (plaster) executed in 1565, still in the Palazzo Vecchio Florence, for which it was created. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has a small wax study, and a small model in clay.
Abduction of a Sabine Woman is a large and complex marble statue by the Flemish sculptor and architect Giambologna. It was completed between 1579 and 1583 for Cosimo I de' Medici. Giambologna achieved widespread fame in his lifetime, and this work is widely considered his masterpiece. It has been in the Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, since August 1582.
Italian Renaissance sculpture was an important part of the art of the Italian Renaissance, in the early stages arguably representing the leading edge. The example of Ancient Roman sculpture hung very heavily over it, both in terms of style and the uses to which sculpture was put. In complete contrast to painting, there were many surviving Roman sculptures around Italy, above all in Rome, and new ones were being excavated all the time, and keenly collected. Apart from a handful of major figures, especially Michelangelo and Donatello, it is today less well-known than Italian Renaissance painting, but this was not the case at the time.
Renaissance sculpture is understood as a process of recovery of the sculpture of classical antiquity. Sculptors found in the artistic remains and in the discoveries of sites of that bygone era the perfect inspiration for their works. They were also inspired by nature. In this context we must take into account the exception of the Flemish artists in northern Europe, who, in addition to overcoming the figurative style of the Gothic, promoted a Renaissance foreign to the Italian one, especially in the field of painting. The rebirth of antiquity with the abandonment of the medieval, which for Giorgio Vasari "had been a world of Goths", and the recognition of the classics with all their variants and nuances was a phenomenon that developed almost exclusively in Italian Renaissance sculpture. Renaissance art succeeded in interpreting Nature and translating it with freedom and knowledge into a multitude of masterpieces.
