A tasteless ham from Parma

Girolamo Francesco Mazzola was born in Parma (hence the tag ‘Il Parmigianino’), and died in 1540 aged 37. At some point he dropped the ‘Girolamo’, maybe round about when he painted ‘Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror’, a startling little picture in which the smoothy-chops young artist demonstrates a mastery of optical distortion, his face polished, his non-painting hand thrust towards the viewer like a fish foregrounded on a slab.

Parmigianino attracts attention for two or three reasons. There’s the oddity: such furtive or chill characters, each portrait a study in black-eyed wariness or Parmesan complacency. Then there’s the homoerotic aspect: he drew male couplings, presumably for private amusement or circulation, and painted at least one sensationally come-hither Cupid. By Vasari’s characteristically unreliable yet indispensable account, Parmigianino ended up a melodramatic ham. Apparently he became obsessed with alchemy and grew a beard.