Pietà

The Pietà (; meaning "pity", "compassion") is a subject in Christian art depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary cradling the mortal body of Jesus Christ after his Descent from the Cross. It is most often found in sculpture. The Pietà is a specific form of the Lamentation of Christ in which Jesus is mourned by the Virgin Mary alone. However, in practice works called a ''Pietà'' may include angels, the other figures usual in ''Lamentations'', and even donor portraits.

An image consisting only of a dead Christ with angels is also called a Pietà, at least in German, where ''Engelpietà'' (literally "Angel Pietà") is the term for what is usually called ''Dead Christ supported by angels'' in English.

Several namesake images have merited a Pontifical decree of coronation, including the Pieta of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome, in the Marienthal Basilica in France, the Franciscan church in Leuven, Belgium, at the Kamp-Bornhofen, Germany, and Our Lady of Charity in Cartagena, Spain.

Context and development

The Pietà is one of the three common artistic representations of a sorrowful Virgin Mary, the other two being the '' Mater Dolorosa'' ("dolorous mother") and the '' Stabat Mater'' ("standing mother"). The other two representations are most commonly found in paintings, rather than sculpture, although combined forms exist.

The Pietà developed in Germany (where it is called ''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. Although the subject was known in Italy, the name may have been slower to be adopted, and the Florentine diarist Luca Landucci, after describing a painting in an entry for June 1482, added "which is called by some a Pietà".

The Deposition of Christ and the Lamentation or Pietà form the 13th of the Stations of the Cross, as well as one of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin.

Although the Pietà most often shows the Virgin Mary holding Jesus, there are other compositions, including those where God the Father participates in holding Jesus Christ. In Spain the Virgin often holds up one or both hands, sometimes with Christ's body slumped to the floor.

Michelangelo

A famous example by the Italian sculptor Michelangelo in marble is in Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City. The body of Christ 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, and because the exterior is thought as the revelation of the interior; therefore, the virgin is morally beautiful. Michelangelo's Pieta sculpture is also unique in the fact that it is the only one of his works that he ever signed. Upon hearing that visitors thought it had been sculpted by Cristoforo Solari, a competitor, he carved his signature into Mary's sash as "MICHAELA ELUS BONAROTUS FLORENTIN SFACIEBA : "Michelangelo Buonarroti the Florentine made this".

In a lesser known Michelangelo Pietà, '' The Deposition'' (), it is not the Virgin Mary who is holding Christ's body, but rather Nicodemus (or possibly Joseph of Arimathea), Mary Magdalene, and the Virgin Mary. There is some indication that the man in the hood is based on a self-portrait of the artist. The sculpture is housed in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence and is also known as the ''Florentine Pietà''.

A generation later, the Spanish painter Luis de Morales painted a number of highly emotional Pietàs, with examples in the Louvre and .

''Dead Christ supported by angels''

This related subject is called ''Engelpietà'' (literally "Angel Pietà") in German, and included here for that reason. It is a variant of the '' Man of Sorrows'' (''Imago Pietatis'') type of andachtsbilder, but showing a Christ who is clearly dead (in ''Man of Sorrows'' images he tends to have his eyes open). Typically the half-length body of the dead Christ sits on a ledge, held up by smaller angels at each side. Christ is naked down to a loin-cloth and his wounds are visible. But there are many variants of this composition, especially after about 1500. It was common in both sculpture and painting from the 14th century until the Counter Reformation, but found through the Baroque period as well.

Comic book art and popular culture

The iconography of Piéta, with a figure holding a body in their arms, has been regularly used in comic book art, especially on covers. One of the most famous examples is the cover for Crisis on Infinite Earths #7, which features the death of Supergirl.

Lana Del Rey's 2012 music video Born to Die features the scene of a man holding the corpse of the singer in a Piéta-like pose.

St. Vincent's song Pietà references her father holding her in a Holiday Inn pool for her baptism "like an inverse-Piéta". This song was released on the St. Vincent (album) deluxe edition.

The ending to John Steinbeck’s ''The Grapes of Wrath'' is often interpreted to symbolize a pietà, with Rose of Sharon cradling a dying old man.

File:Meister der Pietà von Avignon 004.jpg, The '' Avignon Pietà'', Enguerrand Charonton, 15th century
File:Köln st severin pieta.jpg, 15th-century German wood ''Pietà'' from Cologne
File:Jean Malouel - Large Round Pietà - WGA13901.jpg, Pieta Tondo by Jean Malouel, between 1400 and 1410 (Louvre)
File:Museo diocesano di klagenfurt, pietà, 1420 circa, da st. michael am zollfeld.JPG, Austrian ''Pietà'',
File:Van-der-Weyden-Pieta.jpg, Rogier van der Weyden, , Madrid, with Saint John and a donor, -1450
File:Kraków Pietà of Tubądzin.jpg, Kraków,
File:German or Netherlandish 15th Century, Pietà, c. 1450-1500, NGA 3155.jpg, German or Netherlandish 15th Century, ''Pietà'', –1500, National Gallery of Art
File:Pietro Perugino cat19.jpg, Pietro Perugino, Uffizi, 1490
File:Vesperbild Schwaben um 1500.jpg, Swabian painted wood ''Pietà'' of c. 1500
File:Accademia - Pietà Martinengo by Giovanni Bellini Cat.883.jpg, Giovanni Bellini, c. 1505
File:DiefflerPietàL1010653 (2).JPG, Dieffler Pietà, Wooden sculpture, presumably 15th or 18th century, former chapel of St Wendelin in Diefflen, Saarland Museum, Old Collection
File:El Greco Pietà.jpg, El Greco, ''Pietà'', 1571–1576, Philadelphia Museum of Art
File:Annibale Carracci 1560-1609 Pieta.jpg, ''Pietà'', c. 1600, Annibale Carracci, National Museum of Capodimonte
File:Gregorio Fernandez-Piedad.jpg, ''Pietà'' by Gregorio Fernández, 1616–1619, National Sculpture Museum, painted wood for a processional float
File:Andechs Kloster interior 027.JPG, 18th-century Bavarian example with Rococo setting
File:A Pietà by Michelangelo, in the Galleria dell'Accademia.jpg, The Palestrina Pietà originally attributed to Michelangelo but probably by another sculptor
File:William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) - Pieta (1876).jpg, '' Pieta'', 1876, William-Adolphe Bouguereau
File:Pieta, St. Gereon Basilica.jpg, A Pietà in marble by Anton Josef Reiss, 1897
File:(Albi) Collégiale Saint-Salvi - Pietà dite Mater Dolorosa - Chapelle de la déploration du Christ PalissyIM81001576.jpg, Vierge de Pitié, Déploration at Collégiale Saint-Salvi d'Albi, Albi, around 1900

See also

* List of statues of Jesus
* ''Pietà'' (Michelangelo)
* Replicas of Michelangelo's Pietà

References

*"RDK
"Engelpietà"
by Osten, Gert von der, in the online ''Reallexikon zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte'' (in print: Vol. V (1960), pp. 601–621)

Further reading

*

External links

Data collection of the image type Pietà in sculpture

3D model of a detail of Mary from a cast made by the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the Vatican Museums, via photogrammetric survey

Poem by Moez Surani proposing nine new sculptural Pietas

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pieta

Christian terminology
Italian words and phrases
Descent from the Cross