Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror by Parmigianino implies what the title suggests, as Parmigianino had painted himself using a convex mirror as reference. He even painted this on a rounded wooden surface to give off the same effect as the mirror. The most notable portions of the piece, that being the distortions, were in line with the Mannerist ideas of purposefully distorting reality as the natural next step after “perfecting” painting reality as is.
This was the main inspiration for my artwork as I discussed. I referenced the distorted composition of the piece in particular to show off the borderline experimental nature of Mannerist art. Another detail I referenced was how idealized Parmiginanino made himself look, giving himself rather smooth looking skin & rather perfectly kept hair. This I had funneled into Squidward by removing those spots he had in the earlier Northern Renaissance depiction of him.
Deposition from the Cross by Jacopo da Pontormo is very abstract in the sense that there’s really no background for these figures to interact with, so most of them are just floating in a space holding a bunch of twisting complex poses. This piece is very stylized in the way it's painted with vibrant colors & also very minimal colors as well, which puts more emphasis on the figure’s form; this all shows the mannerism style & the move from the more realistic renaissance style.
What I took from this piece to use for my masterpiece was mostly the bright colors. I enjoyed how nothing in this piece was shaded using black, so I took that same approach with my piece. I also took the idea of coordinated colors, where this piece uses it to create an ideal composition by balancing the colors of the figures’ clothes; I attempted to do the same by balancing the general colors used throughout the artwork.
