The
Pietà (pl. same;
Italian for
pity) is a subject in Christian art depicting
the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of
Jesus, most often found in
sculpture. As such, it is a particular form of the
Lamentation of Christ, a scene from the
Passion of Christ found in cycles of the
Life of Christ. When Christ and the Virgin are surrounded by other figures from the New Testament, the subject is strictly called a
Lamentation in English, although
Pietà is often used for this as well, and is the normal term in Italian. The Pietà developed in Germany (where it is called the "Vesperbild") about 1300, reached Italy about 1400, and was especially popular in Central European
Andachtsbilder. Many German and Polish 15th century examples in wood greatly emphasise Christ's wounds. The
Deposition of Christ and the
Lamentation or
Pietà form the 13th of the
Stations of the Cross, as well as one of
Seven Sorrows of the Virgin.
Michelangelo
The most famous Pietà is
Michelangelo's Pietà in
St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. His body is different from most earlier pietà statues, which were usually smaller and in wood. The Virgin is also unusually youthful, and in repose, rather than the older, sorrowing Mary of most pietàs. She is shown as youthful for two reasons; God is the source of all beauty and she is one of the closest to God, also the exterior is thought as the revelation of the interior (the virgin is morally beautiful). Michelangelo's last work was another Pietà, this one featuring not the Virgin Mary holding Christ, but rather
Joseph of Arimathea, probably carved as a self-portrait.
The pieta is most famous because, out of all the things Michelangelo sculpted, The La Pieta was the only one he ever signed.
Extensions of the theme
Sculptor
Luis Jiménez, reversing the gender of the figures involved, used the popular Mexican and Chicano image and myth of the Aztec warrior holding his dead lover to create the monumental
Southwest Pietà, located in
Albuquerque,
New Mexico,
USA.
The
American Pietà was the name given to a famous Reuters photograph of the
September 11, 2001 attacks on the
United States, depicting a policeman and four firemen carrying the body of fire department chaplain
Mychal F. Judge out of the
World Trade Center rubble.
In 1990 the
German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen wrote a piece, as part of the
Tuesday cycle of his
opera '
Licht,' titled 'Pietà.' In the performance
Michael lies wounded and is tended to by
Eve.
A rare leather pietà is in the church
St. Peter and Paul in
Eschweiler,
Germany.
In 2001
Sam Taylor-Wood created a film pietà with
Robert Downey Jr. The film is 2:04 minutes long, and shows
Robert Downey Jr being held by
Sam Taylor-Wood.
“With that piece I wanted to see the struggle, to see the weight, so to speak. You can see the muscles in my arms and neck straining, and my breathing is really laboured. It’s silent, but you can see me heaving to keep him held up. I drop him a bit, and pick him up, and drop him again. You couldn’t do that in a photograph in the same way.” (Sam Taylor-Wood)
Gallery
Image:Meister der Pietà von Avignon 004.jpg|The Avignon Pietà, Enguerrand Charonton, 15th century
Image:Angers Book of Hours (folio 13r).jpg|The prayer Obsecro te (1470s), from the Book of Hours of AngersBodleian Library, University of Oxford
Image:Van-der-Weyden-Pieta.jpg|Pietà by Rogier van der Weyden, Museo del Prado, Madrid, with Saint John and a donor.
Image:Köln st severin pieta.jpg|15th century German wood Pietà from Cologne.
Image:pieta_michelangelo_particolare.PNG|Michelangelo's Pieta, detail
Image:Michelangelo Pieta Firenze.jpg|Pietà by Michelangelo, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence
Image:El Greco Pietà.jpg|El Greco, Pietà, 1571-1576, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Image:Pieta, Dubrovnik.JPG|Church doorway in Dubrovnik
Image:Lapietaweb.jpg|La Pieta, by Doug Johnston
Image:Lebpieta.JPG|Pieta near the base of the Our Lady of Lebanon statue, Harissa
Image:Cruz del milenio 14.JPG|La Pietà on the base of Cruz del Tercer Milenio, Coquimbo, Chile
Image:PietaBoston.jpg|Painted plaster statue at Saint Leonard of Port Maurice Church in the North End of Boston, MassachusettsSee also
