ty and the rules of art, pushing them further and reaching new standards of beauty. Smyth also notes the Mannerist focus of feet, hands, hair, beards, and also abundant garments deserving special care as a focus of grace. The Madonnas drapery is plentiful, gracefully flowing around her, and covering her enormous body from shoulder to toe. Shearman explains that "When a Mannerist artist breaks rules he does so on the basis of knowledge and not of ignorance" (26). Many art historians including Shearman define Mannerism as un-classical and founded on the reversal of classical relationships and forms. In Pontormos Deposition, all the figures are characterized by athletic twists and turns, but the figure in the central front of the painting bends at the ribs, and holds up Christs body while positioned on the tips of his toes and leaning on a mound of fabric. Both are feats impossible for the human body to achieve. Artists of the high Renaissance strove to recreate the perfection of human form precisely but also realistically. Pontormos work is a mass of confusion. It is unclear at times whom certain appendage belongs to, or if a figure possesses them at all. "Paolo Pino, in his Dialogo della Pittura says that in all your works you should intorduce at least one figure that is all distorted, ambiguous and difficult" (Shearman, 86). Mannerist figures appear flat yet are often twisted and contorted in many directions. By breaking the rules, it was obvious that the artist and anyone able to identify the broken rules knows them, and that they are educated in the finer points of art. It would perhaps be more witty to own a work that portrayed a deviation of a rule rather than simply offering one up to the audience. Mannerist artists like to exploit the strain between two and three dimensions, between restricting flatness and poses that suggest the need of freedom and flexibility. Pontormo not only played with the rules of his fi...
