Madonna with the Long Neck

Movement: Mannerism The title tells you what to look for. Parmigianino stretched the Virgin's neck, fingers and body because elegance mattered more to him than natural proportion, and the result looks almost too refined to be human. That deliberate strangeness is Mannerism in a nutshell: Renaissance skill used to produce something artificial and courtly. He began it around 1534 for a church in Parma and left it unfinished when he died in 1540. It hangs in the Uffizi in Florence. What came next: the Baroque swapped this cool polish for drama aimed straight at the viewer.