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Parmigianino and the Beginnings of Etching in Italy
A leading proponent of the Mannerist style and one of the most talented draftsmen of his generation, Francesco Parmigianino was the first Italian artist to fully exploit the possibilities of etching. During his short stay in Bologna between 1527 and 1530, he became deeply involved in printmaking, executing etchings and creating designs for chiaroscuro woodcuts. The appetite for his drawings among a new, sophisticated class of collector provided the main stimulus for his short career as a printmaker. Numbering only eighteen, his delicate, mostly small-scale etchings were immensely influential and widely admired by artists and collectors for their technical skill and exquisite figural compositions. The ingenuity and elegant draftsmanship of his etchings continued to be appreciated in subsequent centuries, earning him the title of the first true "painter-etcher." Furthermore, his experiments with colored inks, plate tone, and pairing of etching with woodcut mark him as one of the great pioneers of the print medium.
In the years immediately following Parmigianino's departure from Bologna, a handful of artists, including Bartolomeo Passarotti and Giulio Bonasone, continued to practice etching in the city, but it was further north in the Veneto that the medium saw its greatest flourishing in Italy. |