The Mannerist Element in English Literature

Abstract

In a recent exhibition based on the Rothschild collection of the Louvre it was possible to see Jacopo de Barberi's early engraving "Apollo and Diana," executed about 1500, and to become aware how the full appeal of Mannerism can sublimate itself from a single small work. Apollo is shown taking his stand in the zodiac, ready to loose his arrow from a strenuously drawn bow. Behind him, Diana retires in to space with her diminished moon, her stag accompanying her. The grace and strength of Apollo and the tenderness of line rendering the body of the goddess reveal a profound indebtedness to classical forms. But the whole design reflects a new feeling for space. A multitude of fine rays emanate from Apollo in concentric ovals, a form repeated in the demi-arc of his bow, the contour of his thigh, the turning flank of the goddess; and in finely etched curves suggesting meridians of the celestial sphere or paths of remote stars. Piercing this array of trajectories are bursts of solar and lunar rays, the aimed arrow, the antlers of the stag, and the luminous hair of both god and goddess blowing in "the great wind of the world." While the eye is engaged with the design, the imagination responds to this conjunction of the last enchantments of the Hellenic world with the new science, the new celestial mechanics. It is typical of the technique of Mannerism, in its first purity, that the burin was used with so nne a touch as to make possible only a few perfect prints before the texture of the line became impaired. In the contemplation of works of this kind, appealing so powerfully to a twentieth-century sensibility, the reason for our renewed appreciation of Mannerism becomes apparent.