The art of mid-16th century Italy was condemned by the 19th-century art critic John Ruskin who associated it with artistic decline and decadence. But by the 1960s it had been elevated by art historian John Shearman to a “silver-tongued language of articulate, if unnatural, beauty” and summed up as “the stylish style”. This “stylish style” or Mannerism – the word taken from maniera, the Italian for ‘style’ – developed mainly in Rome between about 1530 and 1590, marking a move away from the poise and clarity of the Renaissance towards the drama of the Baroque.

Characteristically, its figures are often exaggerated, elongated or in twisted postures, the effect either graceful or grotesque, and its compositions overly complex or artificial. The ideas behind the art can be erudite and difficult to decipher. Now 44 drawings from the period are on show (until October 4) at Christ Church Picture Gallery. Some, little noticed in the 19th century, are now recognised as important examples of Mannerism. One such is a preparatory drawing by Florentine artist Jacopo Pontormo (1494-1557) for a Lamentation altarpiece in Santa Felicità, Florence. It’s a powerful picture, a fluid mélange of limbs, heads, hands and curving backs.

The exhibition has two strands, the human body and studies for decorative arts, and includes works by Bronzino, Parmigianino, Salviati, Tintoretto and Vasari. Salviati’s black chalk drawing of A man leaning down, half-length, over a cross-bar, the out-of-proportion arm drawn for the sake of form not reality, is shown above. There are also several from artists north of the Alps who were influenced by the art seen on visits to Italy, among them the Antwerp-born Frans Floris. And straight outside the drawings gallery are a few paintings that complement the exhibition, for example a Pontormo, and four hexagonal panel paintings of Roman gods by the little-known Italian artist Jacopo Bertoia. I’ll leave you with Rosso Fiorentino and an unusual interpretation of the Immaculate Conception. His allegory is a balanced and thoughtful study showing a modest Virgin figure who in her purity seems to me to rise up out of the complexities of the world, above Adam and Eve, above the prophets, above twisting conflicts and tensions.