A DESCRIPTION OF THE PIETÁ

The pietá  is a Renaissance sculpture of marble by Michelangelo Buonarroti housed in San Peter´s Basilica.This famous work of art depicts the body of Jesus on the lap of his mother Mary after the crucifixion. The theme is of Northern origin, popular at that time in France but not yet in Italy. Michelangelo's interpretation of the Pietà is unprecedented in Italian sculpture. It is an important work as it balances the renaissance ideals of classical beauty with naturalism.

The virgin Mary appears younger than Jesus willfully, because this work was done in the Renaissance, and the beauty ideal was to represent the perfect beauty, youth... An entirely young and beautiful mother.

When Michelangelo did this work he was 24 years old, and many people thought that he wasn´t the real author. When Buonarroti knew it, he caught a chisel and put his name in the work.

The structure is pyramidal, and the vertex coincides with Mary's head. The statue widens progressively down the drapery of Mary's dress, to the base, the rock of Golgotha. The figures are quite out of proportion, owing to the difficulty of depicting a fully-grown man cradled full-length in a woman's lap. Much of Mary's body is concealed by her monumental drapery, and the relationship of the figures appears quite natural

(written by Carlos García, 1º B Bach)