The strange ballet of celestial bodies: When el greco and pontormo reinvented beauty
Imagine for a moment that you step into the Capponi Chapel in Florence on an April morning, when the slanting light caresses the walls like a timid hand. Suddenly, your eyes are seized by a vision that defies all logic: bodies stretch toward the sky, faces express a pain so intense it becomes almost abstract, and colors—pale pinks, acidic greens, celestial blues—seem to float in a space that no longer obeys the laws of perspective. You have just encountered Pontormo’s Deposition from the Cross, a masterpiece of Mannerism where reality dissolves in favor of pure emotion, almost hallucinatory. A few hundred kilometers away, in the dim light of the Church of Santo Tomé in Toledo, another scene awaits you: The Burial of the Count of Orgaz by El Greco, where saints stretch like flames and the sky opens into a whirlwind of golden clouds. Two artists, two visions, one revolution: that of an art that dares to say beauty does not lie in the perfection of forms, but in their power to unsettle us, to elevate us, to make us doubt what we think we know.
By Artedusa
••15 min readMannerism is not just an artistic style. It is a rebellion. A way of saying, in an era torn apart by religious wars and political upheavals, that art need not submit to the rules of nature. That grace can arise from distortion, that emotion takes precedence over verisimilitude, and that genius sometimes lies in the audacity to break conventions. In the hands of Pontormo and El Greco, this aesthetic becomes a universal language, capable of translating anguish, ecstasy, melancholy, and transcendence. But how did we arrive here? And why do these works, so disconcerting in their time, continue to fascinate us today?
01The Renaissance had said it all—or almost
At the beginning of the 16th century, Western art seemed to have reached its peak. Leonardo da Vinci had unlocked the secrets of perspective and sfumato, Raphael had elevated harmony to its paroxysm, and Michelangelo had sculpted bodies so perfect they seemed to defy death itself. Nature, finally mastered, became the mirror of the divine ideal. Yet by the 1520s, something broke. As if artists, having learned, understood, and represented everything, found themselves facing a void: what to do when you have already said it all?
It was in this context of crisis—artistic, religious, and political—that Mannerism was born. The term itself, derived from maniera ("manner" or "style"), is misleading. It suggests a mere question of technique, when in reality it was a conceptual revolution. The Mannerists did not seek to imitate nature but to transcend it. They played with proportions, distorted bodies, stretched limbs as if they were made of wax, and used colors that seemed to come from a feverish dream. Their art was a response to the anxiety of their time: the Sack of Rome in 1527, which ended the golden age of the Renaissance; the Protestant Reformation, which challenged the role of images in worship; and the rise of princely courts where art became a tool of propaganda, but also a playground for the most audacious minds.
Pontormo, born in 1494 near Florence, was one of the first to embark on this path. A student of Andrea del Sarto, he admired Raphael, but it was Michelangelo who left the deepest mark on him. In the unfinished Slaves for the Medici tomb, he discovered a new kind of beauty: that of twisted bodies, bulging muscles, tormented faces. These figures, halfway between sculpture and painting, became an obsession for him. Yet where Michelangelo still sought a form of perfection in deformation, Pontormo went further. He dissolved the rules of perspective, removed spatial references, and created compositions where figures seemed to float in an undefined space. His Deposition, painted between 1525 and 1528, is a manifesto of this new aesthetic. No cross, no solid ground, no identifiable sky: only bodies rising like grieving souls, and colors that seem to vibrate with contained emotion.
El Greco arrived later on the Mannerist scene, but he pushed its principles to their extreme limits. Born in Crete in 1541, he grew up in the Byzantine tradition, where sacred icons obeyed strict canons: golden backgrounds, elongated faces, fixed gazes. In Venice, where he trained under Titian, he discovered color and light, but it was in Rome, and later in Toledo, that he forged his unique style. His art was an improbable blend of Byzantine mysticism, Venetian virtuosity, and Mannerist audacity. In The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, painted in 1586, he superimposed two worlds: that of men, realistic and somber, and that of saints, stretched like flames, bathed in supernatural light. The boundary between heaven and earth blurred, and the viewer was invited to doubt their own perceptions.
02When painting becomes a mystical experience
If Mannerism still fascinates today, it is perhaps because it does not merely represent the world: it seeks to reinvent it, to reveal its hidden dimensions. In Pontormo and El Greco, this quest takes on an almost mystical dimension. Their works are not windows open to reality, but doors to the invisible.
Take Pontormo’s Visitation, painted around 1528. At first glance, it is a classic biblical scene: the Virgin Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth, who is pregnant with John the Baptist. Yet something is off. The colors—pinks, greens, blues—are too vivid, too artificial. The bodies of the two women stretch as if under the effect of an invisible force, and their faces express an emotion so intense it becomes almost unbearable. Above all, the space around them seems to warp, as if the ground were rising and the walls closing in. Some art historians see in this an allegory of melancholy, that "disease of artists" that afflicted Pontormo at the end of his life. Others read it as a metaphor for faith: a moment when the divine manifests itself in the everyday, blurring the boundaries between the real and the supernatural.
El Greco pushed this logic even further. In The Opening of the Fifth Seal, painted between 1608 and 1614, he depicts an apocalyptic vision where the souls of martyrs rise toward heaven in a whirlwind of colors and light. The bodies, stretched to the extreme, seem to dissolve into space, as if matter itself were an illusion. This work, often considered his artistic testament, fascinated the Surrealists of the 20th century, who saw in it a prefiguration of their own quest for a "beyond the real." Picasso, in particular, owned a reproduction of it in his studio and drew inspiration from it for some of his most audacious compositions.
But what makes these works so unsettling is their ability to play with our perceptions. In Pontormo’s Deposition, the viewer is placed in an uncomfortable position: there is no privileged viewpoint, no clear perspective. The figures seem to move in a space that no longer obeys the laws of physics, as if we were witnessing a scene through the eyes of a dreamer. El Greco, for his part, uses light in an almost cinematic way. In Christ on the Cross, painted around 1600, the figure of Christ seems to float in a stormy sky, illuminated by a divine light that comes from no identifiable source. The result is both sublime and destabilizing: one has the impression of contemplating a vision rather than a representation.
03Color as a secret language
If the Mannerists distorted bodies, it was also to better liberate color. In Pontormo and El Greco, the palette becomes a true language, capable of expressing what words cannot.
Pontormo, trained in Andrea del Sarto’s workshop, mastered Renaissance techniques perfectly. Yet he chose to subvert them. In The Deposition, he abandoned earthy tones and classical harmonies in favor of acidic colors: pale pinks, mint greens, milky blues. These hues, which seem almost fluorescent under certain lights, create an effect of waking dream. They do not reflect reality but pure emotion, almost tangible. Some art historians have suggested that Pontormo suffered from vision disorders—perhaps a form of color blindness—that led him to exaggerate chromatic contrasts. Others see the influence of Northern prints, which circulated in Italy at the time and whose bright colors contrasted with the more sober palette of Florentine masters.
El Greco, for his part, used color in a more dramatic way. Trained in Venice, he inherited from Titian a passion for rich, saturated tones, but he pushed them to the extreme. In The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, the saints’ garments are painted in deep reds, emerald greens, and ultramarine blues, which clash violently with the dark tones of the lower part of the painting. These colors were not chosen at random: red symbolizes martyrdom, blue transcendence, and green—often associated with corruption in medieval iconography—recalls the fragility of earthly life. But what strikes most is the way El Greco used light. In Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple, painted around 1600, the bodies seem illuminated from within, as if a divine flame consumed them. The shadows are not black but bluish, giving the whole a nearly supernatural dimension.
This bold use of color earned the Mannerists scathing criticism from their contemporaries. Vasari, in his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, reproached Pontormo for his "colors too vivid and too artificial," while El Greco’s patrons, like King Philip II, judged his works "too strange" for churches. Yet it was precisely this audacity that ensured their posterity. In the 19th century, the Romantics rediscovered El Greco and saw in him a precursor of the tormented genius. In the 20th century, the Expressionists and Surrealists hailed Pontormo as a master of expressive distortion. Even today, their palette continues to inspire artists and designers, who see in it an inexhaustible source of modernity.
04The body as a battleground
For the Mannerists, the body was no longer an ideal to attain but a terrain for experimentation. Pontormo and El Greco distorted it, stretched it, twisted it, as if seeking to reveal its deepest essence.
In The Deposition, Pontormo pushed this logic to its paroxysm. The bodies of the figures are elongated in an almost grotesque way: arms stretch like branches, fingers curl in theatrical gestures, and faces express a pain so intense it becomes almost abstract. Yet despite these distortions, the figures retain a strange grace, as if Pontormo had discovered a new form of beauty, closer to the soul than to the body. Some art historians have suggested that these exaggerated proportions reflected the influence of ancient statues, which Pontormo had studied during his stay in Rome. Others see them as a response to the canons of the Renaissance: where Raphael sought perfect harmony, Pontormo preferred raw emotion.
El Greco went even further in distortion. In The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, the saints descending from heaven to receive the soul of the deceased are stretched like flames, their bodies seeming to dissolve into divine light. Their faces, with elongated features and almond-shaped eyes, recall Byzantine icons but also the elongated figures of Gothic sculpture. Yet unlike medieval artists, El Greco did not seek to idealize his characters. On the contrary, he exaggerated their features, accentuated their expressions, and created silhouettes that seemed both real and supernatural. In Laocoön, painted around 1610, he pushed this logic to the absurd: the bodies of the figures, inspired by the famous ancient sculpture, are so distorted they become almost monstrous. Yet this monstrosity itself is a source of beauty, for it reveals a deeper truth: that of universal, timeless human suffering.
This fascination with distorted bodies was not merely aesthetic. It also reflected a worldview in which man was no longer the center of the universe but a fragile being, torn between heaven and earth. In Pontormo, this tension translated into compositions where figures seemed to float in an undefined space, as if they were both present and absent. In El Greco, it took the form of a struggle between matter and spirit, where bodies, stretched to the extreme, ultimately dissolved into divine light.
05The cursed artist: genius and madness
Behind these masterpieces lie lives as tormented as the works themselves. Pontormo and El Greco were outsiders, misunderstood geniuses who paid dearly for their audacity.
Pontormo, whose real name was Jacopo Carucci, was a solitary man, obsessed with his art and consumed by anxiety. In his diary, which he kept between 1554 and 1556, he noted his fears, his doubts, and his hypochondriac crises. "I am not well… I fear I will die soon," he wrote in 1556. He was right: he died the following year, carried off by the plague. In the last years of his life, he shut himself in his studio, refusing to see anyone and only going out at night. He painted some of his strangest works then, like the frescoes of the San Lorenzo Chapel, now lost, but whose descriptions evoke a world of nightmares and hallucinatory visions.
El Greco, for his part, was a foreigner everywhere he went. Born in Crete, trained in Venice and Rome, he ended up settling in Toledo, where he spent the rest of his life. Yet despite his talent, he was never fully accepted. King Philip II, who had commissioned The Martyrdom of Saint Maurice for the Escorial, rejected the work, judging it "unworthy of a church." The critics of the time found him too strange, too "Greek" (hence his nickname), too far removed from the canons of the Renaissance. Yet El Greco did not let himself be discouraged. He continued to paint, developing an increasingly personal, increasingly audacious style. At the end of his life, he signed his letters "Domenikos Theotokopoulos, painter and philosopher," as if to remind us that his art was more than a mere profession: a spiritual quest, a way of understanding the world.
These marginal lives perhaps explain why their works still move us today. Pontormo and El Greco were not "comfortable" artists. They did not seek to please but to provoke, to unsettle, to elevate. Their paintings are not decorative objects but visual experiences, capable of making us see the world differently.
06The invisible legacy: when Mannerism inspires the present
Though Mannerism was long considered a minor style, a mere interlude between the Renaissance and the Baroque, its influence on modern and contemporary art is immense. Picasso, who owned a reproduction of The Opening of the Fifth Seal in his studio, saw in it a prefiguration of Cubism. "El Greco is the first Cubist," he said. The Surrealists, from Dalí to de Chirico, hailed Pontormo as a master of oneiric distortion. And even today, artists like Jenny Saville or Marlene Dumas draw inspiration from these stretched bodies, these vibrant colors, this ability to translate emotion through distortion.
But Mannerism’s legacy is not limited to painting. In cinema, directors like Peter Greenaway or Alejandro Jodorowsky have used its principles to create unsettling images, where bodies and spaces seem to warp before our eyes. In fashion, designers like Alexander McQueen or Iris van Herpen have drawn from its bold palette and elongated silhouettes to create collections that defy the laws of nature. Even in architecture, buildings like Gaudí’s Sagrada Família or the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao owe something to this aesthetic of movement and distortion.
Yet what makes Mannerism truly modern is its ability to make us doubt our perceptions. In a world saturated with perfect images, where social media imposes ever-smoother beauty standards, the works of Pontormo and El Greco remind us that beauty can arise from imperfection, that emotion takes precedence over perfection, and that art, before being beautiful, must be true. Their paintings are not mirrors but windows open to the invisible. And perhaps that is why they continue to speak to us, four centuries after their creation.
07Epilogue: before the work, time stands still
It is late now. The Capponi Chapel is almost empty, and the evening light filters through the stained glass, casting colored patches on the white walls. Before The Deposition, you remain motionless, as if hypnotized. The bodies stretch, the colors vibrate, and suddenly you feel you understand something you will never be able to explain. Perhaps that is the genius of Mannerism: its power to make us feel rather than see.
In Toledo, in the Church of Santo Tomé, an old woman lights a candle before The Burial of the Count of Orgaz. She may not know that this painting was rejected by the King of Spain, nor that Picasso admired its distortions. Yet she stays there, like so many before her, captivated by these saints rising toward heaven like flames, by this light that seems to come from another world.
Perhaps that is the true magic of art: its ability to move us, even when we do not fully understand why. Pontormo and El Greco understood this. They knew that beauty does not lie in the perfection of forms but in their power to move us, to unsettle us, to make us doubt. And that is why their works, four centuries later, continue to speak to us. Because they do not represent the world. They reinvent it.