Pieta by Michelangelo sculpture - Essay Example

Pieta by Michelangelo The picture, a monumental representation of Mary mother Jesus holding her crucified son, Jesus, has various physical characteristics. Looking at the picture of the statue, one can make out a number of distinctive characteristics defining the picture. The artist, Michelangelo, on a piece of marble skillfully curved the structure, leaving nothing to chance. The Pieta has detailed characteristics, owing to its physical appearance. There are contrasting features of the statue, especially with the clothing, the face of the characters and the stone forming the base of the statue.

The statue shows two people, a young woman holding a young man. From the young man’s posture, it is easy to tell that he is lifeless. The look on the woman’s face reveals more about the young man’s condition. This is Mary and her crucified son Jesus. Jesus lies in her arms, lifeless, while Mary compassionately looks down at her lifeless son with love. In the story of Michelangelo’s pieta, a magnificent depiction of Mary Mother holds her crucified son, Jesus Christ in her arms. The statue represents beauty, both of life and body.

Mary looks down with compassion at her dead son, with a young and beautiful face, revealed by the smoothness of her surface. The outer surface of the statue is made of a differently colored stone, which is brown in color with constant dark patches. Curved from a beautiful stone, with a similar stone forming its base, the statue maintains its consistency and compactness. Despite being a huge statue, there are no additional parts into the picture. Rather, the entire statue is set on a single stone, yet it reveals its distinctive characteristics.

The finishing of the statue gives it a shiny surface, especially the characters, makes it elegant. On the other hand, the stone forming the base has a rough finning, which sets the contrast from the characters under review. The statue has a pyramidal structure, with the cortex coinciding with the Mary’s head. The structure has a narrow top, but progressively widens downwards towards the bottom, with Mary’s drapery dress widening its base. The rock of Golgotha that forms the base of the statue is wide to complete the pyramidal shape of the structure.

However, the structure is huge, owing to the depiction of the two, mother and son, on a full sculpture. The structure is interesting to look at. In reality, Mary was an old woman at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. She was in her fifties, while Jesus was in his thirties. Although due to Jesus’ posture it is hard to make out his face, it is quite easy to make out of Mary’s face. The statue depicts her as a young mother, with her beautiful face looking affectionately at her son’s face. She is full of compassion.

One hand holds Jesus on his upper back, while the other is stretched, perhaps a gesture of prayer. Curved from a piece of marble, the statue has a beautiful appeal. The characters have a shining surface, from obvious polishing of the statue. Mary sits on a stone, the Golgotha stone, the crucifixion point of her son Jesus. In her drapery dress, and headdress, she looks pretty and calm. However, the dress covers most parts of her body, unlike Jesus who is nude, with only a piece of cloth covering his waist to hide his complete nudity.

He has a lean body, thin and slender, while Mary is taller, and bigger. This sets the contrast between the two of them, as Mary is the mother, while Jesus is her son. It is hard to make out the context of the statue, but a closure look at the picture reveals tiny markings on Jesus’ arms. These are points where the people who crucified him nailed him on the cross. Unlike in the real story, which holds that people drove huge nails through arms and legs of Jesus, Michelangelo chose to use simple marks to represent the crucifixion.

This maintains the statue’s aesthetics, and beauty. The artist uses a complex style of sculpturing. It is amazing how he successfully pulls out every detail in the statue. Especially the carvings on Mary’s dress and the emotions of her face, which demonstrates a mastery of work by the artist. It is possible to make out where her legs are, even with the drapes of her dress. The drapes on Mary’s dress flow downwards, giving it a flowing motion. From her headdress to her dress, the movements of the carvings and folds flow downwards to her covered feet.

The surrounding has moving lines, though with no particular direction. The stone that serves as Mary’s chair has a darker color than the rest on the statue. Despite the carving being of the same stone, making the statue a continuous curvature, the stone base has a dark color to set the contrast with the people. Definitely, people’s clothes substantially differ with stone, especially on the texture. It is hard to reveal such texture from a picture. However, the use of a darkened stone surface with a semi-polished surface substantially sets this contrast.

Random lines cut across the surface of the rock, crisscrossing each other. These reveal the rough texture of a stone.