small heads, and stylized facial features, while their poses seem difficult or contrived. The deep, linear perspective space of High Renaissance painting is flattened and obscured so that the figures appear as a decorative arrangement of forms in front of a flat background of indeterminate dimensions. Mannerists sought a continuous refinement of form and concept, pushing exaggeration and contrast to great limits. The results included strange and constricting spatial relationships, jarring juxtapositions of intense and unnatural colors, an emphasis on abnormalities of scale, a sometimes totally irrational mix of classical motifs