Mannerism (Style and Civilization)

It is to John Shearman's credit that he has cut through the detritus of psychological guesswork, shown that the word mannerism has a precise meaning in its own time. Manierismo was the extreme consciousness of elegant style for its own sake, a passion which unites the cold narcissistic nudes of Bronzino, the elaborate chiselling of Benvenuto Cellini's saltcellar, and the water-games in a duke's garden. Shearman's essay ranges across sixteenth-century music, literature, and architecture as well as art: it is a model of breadth and concision. On of the most admirable ventures in British scholarly publishing. Its virtues and the quality of its achievements are known to art historians and deserve to be far more widely acknowledged. Excellent and beautifully illustrated.