The Madonna and Child with Saints

John the Baptist looks straight out of the painting and directs a long finger upwards. Follow it towards Mary and the infant Christ, set in a burst of light against darker clouds. The child’s foot projects towards us, breaking the distance between the heavenly group and the foreground. Parmigianino, an Italian painter from Parma, made the work in 1526–27 for a burial chapel in Rome. It was never installed there. The disruption following the Sack of Rome in 1527 changed its destination. Below, Saint Jerome sleeps on the ground, holding a crucifix. His exhausted body and John’s alert gesture create different ways of approaching the vision above. The long limbs and unusual spacing feel deliberately removed from an ordinary view of people in a room. This artificial elegance is associated with the style later called Mannerism. You can recognise its effect in the distance John’s finger seems to bridge. The figures share a religious subject, but their exaggerated shapes make their relationship something you have to follow actively with your eyes.