Sunday, October 2, 2016

Parmigianino Drawings from the British Museum

Parmigianino
Study of a seated woman seen from the back
ca. 1518-40
drawing
British Museum

Parmigianino
Design for a frame with mourning putti
ca. 1518-40
drawing
British Museum

Parmigianino
Figure of a youth, half-length
ca. 1518-40
drawing
British Museum

"The stereotype is the word repeated without any magic, any enthusiasm, as though it were natural, as though by some miracle this recurring word were adequate to each occasion for different reasons, as though to imitate could no longer be sensed as an imitation: an unconstrained word that claims consistency and is unaware of its own insistence. Nietzsche has observed that "truth" is only the solidification  of old metaphors. So in this regard the stereotype  is the present path of "truth," the palpable feature which shifts the invented ornament to the canonical, constraining form of the signified. (It would be good to imagine a new linguistic science that would no longer study the origin of words, or etymology, or even their diffusion, or lexicology, but the progress of their solidification, their densification throughout historical discourse; this science would doubtless be subversive, manifesting much more than the historical origin of truth: its rhetorical, languaging nature.)"

- from Pleasure of the Text by Roland Barthes, translated by Richard Miller, 1975

Parmigianino
Design for church vaulting
ca. 1518-40
drawing
British Museum

Parmigianino
Standing figure of St John the Baptist
ca. 1518-40
drawing
British Museum

Parmigianino
St John the Baptist in the Wilderness
ca. 1518-40
drawing
British Museum

Parmigianino
 Study of an arm
ca. 1518-40
drawing
British Museum

Parmigianino
Study of a leg
ca. 1518-40
drawing
British Museum

Parmigianino
Vision of St Jerome
ca. 1526-27
drawing
British Museum

Parmigianino
Six standing figures
ca. 1518-40
drawing
British Museum

Parmigianino
Preparatory model of Michelangelo's David, from the back
ca. 1523-24
drawing
British Museum

Parmigianino
Vulcan showing Mars & Venus to the other Olympian Gods
ca. 1518-40
drawing
British Museum

Parmigianino
Woman and horse
ca. 1518-40
drawing
British Museum

Parmigianino
St Paul with sword, among other figures
ca. 1518-40
drawing
British Museum