Author(s): David Ekserdjian

Art

For a few decades in the first half of the 16th century, the tremendous quality of the paintings and drawings produced in Parma (and by artists from the city working elsewhere) made the city more than a match for its rivals. The two reasons for this brief golden age were Correggio (1489-1534) and Parmigianino (1503-40). Correggio moved to Parma in the late 1510s, by which time he was already a highly accomplished artist; he was to remain based in the city for the rest of his life. This book gathers a selection of his paintings and drawings that emphasize his extraordinary emotional power, the range of his religious imagery and his mythological works. Parmigianino, whose peripatetic career took him to Rome and Bologna, is represented by a similarly important group of paintings, but in addition to religious and mythological subjects, his spectacular achievements as a portraitist are a central focus.