Pietà

Michelangelo's St Peter's Pieta.

For other uses, see Pietà (disambiguation).

"Pieta" redirects here. For the American musician, see Pieta Brown.

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 about 1300, reached Italy about 1400, and was especially popular in Central Europe. 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 interpretation 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. 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.

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)

In 2007 gothic director Tim Burton used the Pieta as one of the last shots of his horror musical movie, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Gallery

• 
  The Avignon Pietà, Enguerrand Charonton, 15th century
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  The prayer Obsecro te (1470s), from the Book of Hours of Angers
  Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
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  Pietà by Rogier van der Weyden, Museo del Prado, Madrid, with Saint John and a donor.
• 
  15th century German wood Pietà from Cologne.
• Michelangelo's Pieta, detail
  Michelangelo's Pieta, detail
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  Pietà by Michelangelo, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence
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  El Greco, Pietà, 1571-1576, Philadelphia Museum of Art
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  Church doorway in Dubrovnik
• La Pieta, by Doug Johnston
  La Pieta, by Doug Johnston
• Il-Pietà statue, Żejtun, Malta
  Il-Pietà statue, Żejtun, Malta
• 
  Pieta near the base of the Our Lady of Lebanon statue, Harissa
• 
  La Pietà on the base of Cruz del Tercer Milenio, Coquimbo, Chile

See also

• Roman Catholic Marian art
• Descent from the Cross
• Stations of the Cross

External links

• Religious commentary on the Pietà
• Our Lady of Fatima Parish Feast Commission in Pietà, Malta
• Michelangelo's Pieta in St Peter's Basilica