Michelangelo’s Pieta
Michelangelo’s Pieta was contracted on August 26, 1498 and was finished in 1499. It is made out of marble and is located in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Italy. The male figure in the statue is the size of a normal person, life sized in other words, and properly proportioned. The female figure, however, is not life sized, although she is properly proportioned. If she stood up she would be 7′ tall. The actual dimensions of the statue is 174cm x 195cm, or 68.5in x 76.8in.
Pieta is a statue. It displays a man and a woman. While most of the statue is a little grey in the picture, the marble gives a nice surface for light to shin on. There are areas of shadows around the woman’s neck and under the many folds of the cloth. The shadows also appear on the bottom of the man’s foot, and under it. On outward folds, the man’s ribs, around his ankles and feet, and his arms the light source is being reflected and shows up really shiny.
The focal point of Pieta is a young looking woman holding a young man. The woman is sitting in a rocky area at a somewhat uneven section as one knee is higher than the other, her upper body is at a slight slant, and the man is lying across her lap at an incline. The woman is facing forward completely while the man is more of a profile view. To the left of the two people there is a small stack of rocks. By the man’s feet there is a log or part of a tree. The woman is supporting the man’s upper body with her right hand going around his back and under his arm. Her left hand is extended in an open position. Her head is slanted slightly to the right and turned slightly downward. The expression on her face is a placid reverend one where the eyes are either downcast or shut in thought, as only the lids are shown. She is covered in an early form of dress that is mainly just folds and folds of fabric. The fabric not only covers her entire body but also her head and hair. This form of dress leaves only the skin on her hands, face, neck, and the very tip of her left foot the only skin showing. Between every finger, except the thumb, and the man’s body there is a cloth that realistically responds to the pressure of the pulling of the woman’s fingers. Across the woman’s chest, from left to right, there is a sash of some sort with some markings, and at the bottom of her dress there is a line that is a consistent distance all along the bottom of the cloth and looks like a hem. The man too is wearing cloth, but only around his pelvic area. The cloth seems to be wrapped in a way that suggests it was placed there to cover him up. The man doesn’t look as well fed as the woman. His rib cage is plainly visible and there isn’t any fat anywhere else on him. His feet are more forward than his head which suggests that he is leaning towards the woman and because one knee extends slightly further then the other knee the body appears to be crumpled inward on the right side as well. His head is lying back and to the front, slightly, and the entire body is limp. The man’s left arm must be bent next to his back because his forearm and hand are clearly visible resting on the woman’s lap at a slightly upward slant. The forearm bends again at the wrist and the hand begins a miner decline presumably over the edge of the woman’s lap. His right arm is hanging over the lady’s hand and bends slightly with the folds of cloth around the lady’s knee and shin bone. Only four of the man’s fingers are visible, none of which are his thumb. One of the fingers, the index, is even caught a little in a fold of cloth and being pulled away from the other fingers ever so delicately. His feet are across the woman’s leg that slants down at the top. His left leg lies straight across the top of her knee, bends at his knee at an almost 90 degree angle, and ends with his foot resting flat on a piece of slanted ground. The right leg lies across the upper part of the woman’s thigh and is therefore higher elevated than the left leg. The right leg extends up and out over the woman’s thigh and bends at what looks like a 120 degree angle. The leg then extends down to the foot, which is suspended in the air and is turned outward, away from the front, and slants down.
