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)
