Answer:
Mannerism is the name used to designate artistic manifestations from 1520, when the Renaissance crisis began, until the early seventeenth century. This whole period was marked by a series of changes in Europe, involving the reformist religious movements and the consolidation of absolutism in various countries.
The wars involving Italy and later the force of the Inquisition will determine a great exodus of artists and intellectuals toward other countries; "Great empires are beginning to form, and man is no longer the main and only measure of the universe."
In this sense it will be realized that mannerism has varied characteristics, difficult to gather them and a single concept.
The term Mannerism was used by Giorgio Vasari to refer to the "way" of each artist to work. An obvious tendency for over stylization and a whim in detail are beginning to be his mark, thus extrapolating the rigid lines of classic canons.
Many critics consider that mannerism represents the opposition to classicism and at the same time remained an artistic trend until the development of the Baroque, which would mark the new artistic vision of the Catholic Church after the counter-reform movement. Some historians consider it a transition between the Renaissance and the Baroque, while others prefer to see it as a style itself.
Artists began to create an art characterized by the deformation of figures and the creation of abstract figures, where there was no direct relationship between the size of the figure and its importance in the work.