The Italian Mannerist painter Parmigianino was born Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, 11 January, 1503. Like Da Vinci, who became known for Vinci the town of his birth, Parmigianino took his artistic name from his birthplace of Parma. It is said that Parmigianino "the little one from Parma" was a ground breaker, forging with other non-conformists what centuries later became modern art. Vasari recorded that in Rome Parmigianino was regarded as an incarnation of Raphael "celebrated as Raphael reborn" who had died in 1520. The period when Parmigianino was seventeen and painting as an apprentice alongside his artist uncles Michele and Pier Ilario who raised him.
I inherited my mother's collection by Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, and I'll refer to it for this post.
"Among many people of Lombardy who have been endowed with the graceful talent of design and with a certain liveliness of mind in invention and a particular style in painting very beautiful landscapes, we would not rank lower than anyone else, rather we would rank higher than all the others, Francesco Mazzuoli of Parma, who generously endowed by Heaven with all the attributes required by a painter of excellence. For he gave to his figures, in addition to what has been said of many others, a certain loveliness, sweetness, and charm in their attitudes which were particularly his own." —Giorgio Vasari, Vite de' piu excellenti Pittori, Scultori e Architetti, published 1550, volume two
Vasari proceeds with his introduction by scolding Parmigianino for wasting his talent away and risking harm to himself in the pursuit of alchemy. His attempt to make quick money from 'silver' and the solidifying of mercury rather than by the hand of talent he was born with. Vasari believed that the world lost one of the greats when Parmigianino became distracted from his painting. He passed as a young man at the age of thirty-seven.
Parmigianino at sixteen painted a series of significant panels followed by frescos (I will not list them), one work which Vasari tells us included a portrait of his patron "so well that only the breath was lacking." All who saw the paintings he accomplished before the age of nineteen marveled they must have been painted by an old master and not a youth. I love his hand and eye.
Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror, Parmigianino, 1524
Self-portrait, Parmigianino, 1540
"But the mirror portrait I remember having seen, being still a youth, in Arezzo at the home of Messer Pietro Aretino, where strangers passing through the city would come to see it for its rare quality. I do not know how, but afterwards it fell into the hands of Valerio Vicentino, the crystal-engraver, and it now belongs to Alessandro Vittoria, the sculptor in Venice, who is a pupil of Jacopo Sansovino." —Vasari, 1550
Parmigianino was an accomplished lute player and etcher as well. Vasari suggests he took to alchemy because he was hard up for cash, and bent on scheming himself into some fast money. Parmigianino fell into melancholy and madness from what we would now attribute to symptoms of mercury poisoning, changing from a meticulous person into one of disrepair. He died quickly and painfully from fever, and grave dysentery over the course of a few days. Vasari is quick to compliment Parmigianino with what I consider one of the greatest compliments; his physical manner and form where as gracious, lovely and elegant as his paintings. How very sad, the world lost Caravaggio and Parmigianino at almost the same altogether too young age!! My eye tells me, Parmigianino was fond of hand painting and a lover of the exquisite color green.
Turkish Slave (Schiava Turka), Parmigianino, 1533
Portrait of Galeazzo Sanvitale, Parmigianino, 1524
Parmigianino Self Portrait, 1540
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