Madonna with the Long Neck (Madonna del Collo Lungo)
Madonna with the Long Neck — Parmigianino, c.1534-1540
Parmigianino, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Parmigianino's Madonna with the Long Neck is the supreme example of Italian Mannerism — a large and unfinished altarpiece (approximately 216 by 132 cm) that deliberately distorts the human figure in the service of an extreme elegant beauty. The Virgin sits on a throne, the Christ Child asleep across her lap (the figure of the sleeping Christ is the body-type of the Pietà — he is already dead, or will be); five angels crowd in at the left; at the lower right, a tiny figure of St Jerome examines an unrolled scroll against a row of columns that recede into an undefined background.
The Virgin's neck is impossibly elongated; her fingers are impossibly long; the sleeping Child is almost too large to be the child of this figure. The deliberate distortion is not an error but a programme: the beauty of the Virgin is expressed through formal exaggeration, just as metaphysical poetry expresses emotional intensity through conceptual exaggeration.
Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola, 1503-1540) was the most influential Italian painter of the generation between Raphael (who died in 1520) and the Council of Trent (1545-1563). His approach — to take the High Renaissance vocabulary of ideal beauty and push it to extremes — defined Italian Mannerism.
The Madonna with the Long Neck was left unfinished at his death in 1540: the background is incomplete, the column bases are sketched but not painted, the figure of St Jerome is unfinished. The painting was delivered to the patron (the Servi di Maria in Parma) unfinished and has remained in that state.
The sleeping Christ Child is an early Pietà — he lies across the Virgin's lap exactly as he will lie after the Deposition. The Virgin's expression, looking down at the sleeping Child, combines maternal tenderness with a prescient knowledge.
The five angels at the left are almost comic in their crowding and their expressions of adoration — they push forward to see the Child with an urgency that contrasts with the Virgin's stillness. The tiny St Jerome at the lower right establishes a scale comparison that makes the Virgin's figure even more impossibly tall.
When standing before this work, look carefully: Madonna with the Long Neck — Parmigianino, c.1534-1540. Give it time — what seems decorative often carries the central meaning.
When standing before this work, look carefully: The elongated Virgin — Mannerist beauty. Give it time — what seems decorative often carries the central meaning.
When standing before this work, look carefully: The sleeping Christ — Pietà anticipation. Give it time — what seems decorative often carries the central meaning.
When standing before this work, look carefully: Tiny St Jerome — scale distortion at the lower right. Give it time — what seems decorative often carries the central meaning.
Uffizi Gallery, Room 26 (Mannerism), Florence.