Mannerism

Mannerism is a sixteenth century architectural style that took the vocabulary of classical Renaissance architecture, its columns, pediments and proportional systems, and deployed it in deliberately strange or exaggerated ways rather than in its expected, harmonious form. Where High Renaissance architecture prized balance, proportion and ideal beauty, Mannerist architects distorted or displaced classical elements, for instance setting columns into deep wall niches where they appear to rest on brackets rather than solid ground, producing effects that read as artificial and unsettling rather than naturalistic. Michelangelo is the artist most closely associated with the style; his design for the vestibule of the Laurentian Library in Florence is considered a pioneering work of Mannerist architecture, using columns that appear to lean backward and corners that project outward rather than recede, deliberately unsettling Renaissance expectations of how a classical space should behave. The style is generally understood as a transitional phase between the High Renaissance and the more theatrical Baroque architecture that followed it.