The Renaissance in Parma was one of the main declinations of Renaissance art in Italy. Late compared to other centers, Parma developed from the second decade of the sixteenth century a school of absolute prestige and relevance, among the most interesting of the century, churning out two absolute masters of art such as Correggio and Parmigianino. The real “factory” of talent was the church of San Giovanni Evangelista, rebuilt by 1519 and decorated by Correggio and a team of young promises destined to become famous artists.
In general, the works of the Parma school are distinguished by a refined and captivating style, the polished surfaces, the smoothness of the poses and expressions ; they were one of the sources of fundamental inspiration for the seventeenth-century school of Emilia, that of the Carracci and Guido Reni.
Origins
Parma, the provincial center throughout the fifteenth century, at the beginning of the new century did not have a pictorial tradition comparable to that of other Emilian centers such as Ferrara or even Bologna. Some foreign masters worked there sporadically, such as the Venetian Cima da Conegliano. Among the active painters stood Filippo Mazzola, father of the famous Francesco, who had visited Venice and had developed a style linked to the ways of Giovanni Bellini and Vittore Carpaccio . Francesco Marmitta and Cristoforo Caselli were also active.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century Parma quickly recovered the gap with the other centers, becoming the most active center of the entire region . Already in the early years of the century personalities such as Alessandro Araldi proved to be up-to-date at the Centroitaliano reunion, that of Perugino and of the young Raphael, specializing in the painting of sketches between complex grotesques, girali and candelabras.
Correggio
Originally from Correggio, Antonio Allegri went down in history with the name of his own city. His artistic training took place between Emilia (under the Modenese sculptor Antonio Begarelli) and Mantua (at school by the aged Andrea Mantegna), also interested in Leonardo, Raphael and the Umbrian and Florentine painters. This wealth of ideas guaranteed him an autonomous trait, based on the search for a narrative fluidity, where Leonardo’s nuance was combined with a rich color, spread out softly, and a perfect domination of perspective illusionism, learned from Mantegna..
His career is marked by three major fresco cycles in Parma: the Chamber of the Abbess in the convent of San Paolo (1518), the decoration in the church of San Giovanni Evangelista (1520-1523) and the dome of the Cathedral of Parma with the Assumption (1526-1530). In these works, moving away more and more from the fifteenth-century spatial rules, he put on scenographic solutions of refined artifice, which already laid the foundations, with a century of advance, for the great Baroque decoration .
In the room of the Abbess she pretended a pergola that covers the vault (a motif already used by Mantegna and Leonardo), to which she added a series of lunettes below that, with an effective chiaroscuro, similar niches with mythological reliefs, of extraordinary illusionistic effect, above all to the suffused natural light that makes the whites of monochromes shine .
At San Giovanni Evangelista stands out the fresco of the Ascension of Jesus, with the effect “broken down” that simulates an open sky in which the characters seen from below fluctuate. Last concern is the geometric measurability of space, with Christ suspended in mid-air above the spectator .
In the Cathedral he finally created his masterpiece, an ‘ Assumption of Mary conceived as a riot of angels that, in a circular whirl of clouds, accompany the ascent of the Virgin towards the golden light of paradise. Subdividing the individuality of the individual figures, they contribute corally to the overall effect, thanks also to the light and flowing color that does not generate sharp deadlifts between one figure and another .
In the altarpieces Correggio built monumental figures, with a particular attention to the modeling and to the fluid correlation between the figures, derived from Leonardo. In the last years of his life, for Federico Gonzaga, he started the series of Amori di Giove, of which he had time to complete four canvases. These are works in balance between sensual rendition of the episode and poetic transfiguration, milestones in the history of profane painting .
Parmigianino
A pupil of Correggio, Parmigianino was the second great master of the Parma school. Interested since the early years to graphics, optics and alchemy, he gave evidence of an original talent and in some ways eccentric in works such as the self – portrait within a convex mirror (1524), with a very particular perceptive rendering. After working with Correggio in San Giovanni, around 1522, he had a quick independent maturation in the short but intense period spent at the small court of Fontanellato near the Sanvitale. Here he portrayed Galeazzo Sanvitale (a work already fully ripe, today in Capodimonte) and above all frescoed a small room of the fortress, the Stufetta of Diana and Atteone, or the private bathroom of the wife of Galeazzo. In this environment, he recreated an arbor inspired by the Chamber of San Paolo del Correggio, enriching the model of moral themes and with a sharp definition of the forms, opposed to the soft corrugation light corrugate .
Unlike the master, in fact, Parmigianino preferred the tapered forms, the smooth and compact fields, the almost enamelled color .
Others
Among the other masters of the mature Renaissance active in Parma there was the Sienese Michelangelo Anselmi, from 1516. A wearer of iridescent pastel colors at Beccafumi, he worked in the great construction sites of the time, from the church of San Giovanni Evangelista, where he frescoed the apses of the transept and two chapels, and the Madonna della Steccata, where he decorated the apse and choir.
Girolamo Bedoli, a cousin to the brother-in-law of Parmigianino, was also a pupil of Correggio and at the departure of the latter he executed the remaining afgfreschi in the Cathedral of Parma.
Source from Wikipedia