Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Frans Floris the Elder
Netherlandish; 16th-century
Antwerp, Belgium: Royal Museum of Fine Arts
87%
The Fall of the Rebel Angels. 1554. Oil on panel
In the crowding of bodies and the devilishness there's a clear affinity with Bruegel, but obviously the connection ends there. Floris was the great gauche mannerist of Flemish painting. His Michelangelism could never have abided the buxom ladies, well-fed suitors, and tenuous demons of his countryman. But then again, look at the gaps between Floris's combatants — there's a gorgeous yellow and purplish one at bottom right, and the roof of the painting is nearly full of empty space: these lacunas are fewer and further between than those in Bruegel's paintings, but like his they cause a rhythmic effect that breaks up the onslaught of bodies and allows your eye to recover before subjecting itself to the next barrage. Other noteworthy aspects of this painting, however, have nothing to do with the truly best Flemish pictures. For instance, look at how the bottom edge of the painting is also the floor into which Michael and his buddies are slamming down all the demons. This is a nice example of the wry self-consciousness of Mannerism, which is a style of painting that's always winking at the knowledge it has about the conditions of its own falseness, but then only ever to enhance that very sense of unreality. Of course, this extravagance and artistic duplicity is Michelangelo's influence taken far past its furthest acceptable extremes; it's histrionics, plain and simple. But to an extent, it's all so extraordinarily technically sophisticated that that sophistication itself muscles its way into aesthetic legitimacy. This is a painting that's good in spite of itself. (TFS, 2026)