Parmigianino Round Table

Excellent online seminar from the Courtauld Gallery to compliment their exhibition of Parmigianino drawings and prints.

Five talks took us through various aspects of Parmigianino’s work on paper from an analysis of the handwriting on the drawings, his use of reversal in images and the drawings in Vienna.

Catherine Jenkin’s an independent researcher and Naoko Takahatake from the Getty Research Institute took us though Parmigianino’s innovative print production looking at both his woodcuts and etchings. They speculated that he had learnt his techniques in Rome and discussed how he advanced the use of this relatively new technology.

My favourite talk used the baptismal records in Parma to trace the links between artists in the city in the last ten years of Parmigianino’s life. Mary Vaccaro found the artist as godfather to four children of other artists and talked about how this honour implied a close link between people and families. I thought this was an innovative approach and as she said a good use of lock down time.

I have since been to the exhibition, watch this space, and this online afternoon gave me a lot of great background on the show and made me look out for specific ideas.

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