History of La Pieta by Michelangelo
In 1497, Cardinal Jean de Billheres commissioned 23-year-old Michelangelo to create a sculpture to go into a side chapel at Old St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
The resulting work – the Pieta – would be so successful that it helped launch Michelangelo’s career.
The Pieta became famous right after it was carved. Other artists started looking at it because of its greatness, and Michelangelo’s fame spread.
Since the artist lived another 60 years after carving the Pieta, he witnessed the reception of the work by generations of artists.
The Pieta shows the Virgin Mary holding the dead body of Christ after his crucifixion, death, and removal from the cross, but before he was placed in the tomb.
This is one of the key events from the life of the Virgin, known as the Seven Sorrows of Mary.
Today, you can visit the statue in New St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, Rome.
10 Facts about La Pieta by Michelangelo
1. The “Pieta” is the only Michelangelo artwork bearing the artist’s name. He added it after overhearing a viewer misidentify the work as belonging to another artist.
Courtesy of www.Michelangelo.org
The inscription on the diagonal band running over the Virgin Mary’s torso was added after the carving was complete.
Historian, Vasari wrote about the life of Michelangelo as follows:
“And the reason was that one day Michelagnolo, entering the place where it was set up, found there a great number of strangers from Lombardy, who were praising it highly, and one of them asked one of the others who had done it, and he answered, “Our Gobbo from Milan.” Michelagnolo stood silent, but thought it something strange that his labors should be attributed to another; and one night he shut himself in there, and, having brought a little light and his chisels, carved his name upon it.”
-Vasari’s Lives of the Artists
2. Michelangelo may have signed “Pieta” twice. During a repair project in the early 1970s, restorers discovered the letter “M” engraved on the Virgin Mary’s left palm. Because it was cleverly worked into the lines of the sculpture’s skin, it had not been previously detected. The monogram may stand for Michelangelo, Mary or both.
3. Although he worked in Florence for most of his life, Michelangelo sculpted the “Pieta” during a five-year period he spent in Rome. It was commissioned by Cardinal de Billheres.
4. Michelangelo claimed that the block of Carrara marble he used to work on this was the most “perfect” block he ever used, and he would go on to polish and refine this work more than any other statue he created.
5. The loan of “Pieta” to the 1964 World’s Fair in New York City was a high-security undertaking. A bulletproof enclosure consisting of two and a half tons of Plexiglas ensured the statue’s safety. Electric-powered conveyor walkways kept crowds of viewers moving along.
6. Its trip to the World’s Fair was the first time the statue had left Rome since its creation. The precious cargo in its triple packing crate weighed in at just under six tons.
7. The packaging created for the sculpture’s Atlantic crossing was designed to withstand a shipwreck. If the ship went own, the crate would float. If the statue partially sunk, a radio transmitter inside the crate would serve as a location device.
Afterward, Pope Paul VI said it would never be lent out again and would remain at the Vatican.
8. Four fingers on Mary’s left hand were broken and restored in 1736.
9. In May 1972, a Hungarian-born man named Laszlo Toth, damaged the “Pieta” with a hammer. After repair work was complete, the Vatican had the marble statue encased in a triple layer of bulletproof glass.
Toth hit the statue with a hammer breaking off the left arm of Holy Mary, and breaking her nose and some of her left eye. Among the most difficult damage to repair was Mary’s left eyelid, which took approximately 20 tries before the restorers got it right.
10. It took technicians several months to sort and identify all the fragments of marble dislodged by Toth’s hammer. The entire restoration took about 10 months.
Analysis of Mary and Jesus in La Pieta by Michelangelo
The Pieta is when Mary is confronted with the reality of the death of her son. In sadness, she is resigned to what has happened and is enveloped in graceful acceptance. Christ is depicted as if he is in a peaceful slumber and not one who has been tortured for many hours and died.
In supporting Christ, the Virgin’s right-hand does not come into direct contact with his flesh, but instead, it is covered with a cloth which then touches Christ’s side. This signifies the sacredness of Christ’s body.
The two figures are beautiful and idealized, despite their suffering. This reflects the High Renaissance belief that these beautiful figures were echoing the beauty of the divine.
Analysis of the La Pieta Sculpture Composition
This was a special work of art because, at the time, multi-figured sculptures were rare.
These two figures are carved so as to appear in a unified composition which forms the shape of a pyramid, something that other Renaissance artists (e.g. Leonardo) also favored.
The proportions of the 2 figures are not entirely natural in relation to the other. Although their heads are proportional, Mary’s body is larger than Christ’s body. She appears so large that if she stood up, she would tower over her son. The reason Michelangelo did this was that it was necessary so Mary could support her son on her lap; If her body had been smaller, it might have been very difficult for her to hold an adult male as gracefully as she does.
To accomplish this, Michelangelo formed the garments in her lap into a sea of folded drapery to make her look larger. After his work on the marble was complete, the marble looked less like stone and more like actual cloth.
The 23-year-old artist presents an image of Mary with Christ’s body that was never attempted before. Her face is youthful, yet beyond time. “The body of the dead Christ exhibits the very perfection of research in every muscle, vein, and nerve. No corpse could more completely resemble the dead than does this. The veins and pulses, moreover, are indicated with so much exactitude, that one cannot but marvel how the hand of the artist should in a short time have produced such a divine work.”
Complaint against Michelangelo
Around the time the work was finished, there was a complaint against Michelangelo because of the way he depicted the Virgin Mary. She appears too young to be the mother of a 33-year-old son. Michelangelo’s answer was simply that women who are chaste retain their beauty longer.
Sabat Mater song for Our Lady of Sorrow
LINK Sabat Mater by Notre Dame Liturgical Choir
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Pieta by Michelangelo
References
Beautiful. Thank you.