Pieta
7:00 AM |
| Michelangelo, Pieta, 1498－1500 |
Demolishing all opposition, Michelangelo wins for creating the most disproportionate sculpture of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. With a lap wide enough to fit another three sons and a towering body structure enough to intimidate Gilgamesh, Michelangelo's Virgin Mary in Pieta is slightly off-balance, to say the least. Jesus, on the other hand, has the enviously petite, thin, and "ab-tastic frame" of a modern male teen model. Clearly Michelangelo had a faulty measuring tool or desperately needed a pair of corrective lenses. Nonetheless, he was still proud of his work, and when he overheard someone claiming his sculpture to be someone else’s, he immediately set to work engraving his name across the sash on Mary’s chest. Were Michelangelo applying for college today, two words that’d describe him would be talented and territorial.
And despite it all, Pieta radiates of incredible sorrow and soft, holy serenity. Viewers can easily look past the odd proportions of the sculpture and see the intricacy of each detail. Unlike a majority of other sculptures and paintings that portray Mary swooning or hysterically sobbing, Michelangelo somehow incorporates inexplicable sadness and resignation into one expression. With her left hand poised in a palm-upward motion, she seems to be beckoning to the viewer, perhaps to share her impossible pain. Jesus, also unlike a majority of other sculptures and paintings that preceded this one has a face, void of sufferings and pain. Rather it’s peaceful, as if his work has been done to his contentment.
True to his era, Michelangelo shows us an extremely human portrayal of the figures. Mary’s draping robe is simply gorgeous as it pools gently beneath the Christ, and though their figures in general are off proportion, the details of the face, hands, and body are exquisite.
Mary's expression in this sculpture brings in a new type of art form, unheard of even in the Roman and Greek sculptures that Michelangelo based a majority of his works off of. Pieta is a gorgeous representative for Michelangelo's talents.
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