While Renaissance masters (Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci) took idealized nature as their model, the Mannerists (Parmigianino, Agnolo Bronzino, El Greco) took as their model not nature, but the very "manner" (maniera) of the High Renaissance masters, deliberately exaggerating their techniques.

The Renaissance reflected confidence in the power of human reason and the harmony of the world. Mannerism emerged during a crisis of humanist ideals caused by the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, and political instability in Italy (including the Sack of Rome in 1527), which manifested as a departure from clarity in favor of an anxious sophistication.