The Pieta is one of several representations used in Biblical art to depict a grieving Virgin Mary (the Mater Dolorosa). Another comes from the Stations of the Cross, when the weeping mother meets her son Jesus on the way to His Crucifixion at Calvary. The second is the Stabat Mater (here stands the mother), depicting the Madonna standing beneath the cross, an image often used as part of a large church-crucifix or rood. The intensity of the imagery can vary considerably. Wood-carved Pietas in German Gothic often emphasise Christ's wounds, and/or the Virgin's grief.
In a modern Pieta in the Ukraine we see the work of an artist we have seen before- KHRYSTYNA YATSYNIAK- one of the new icon-makers from Lviv. She gives us a serenely sad close-up of Pieta in drab olive and gray. As Mary reaches out to touch the face of Jesus, peaceful in death, it is a heart-rending image which resonates in life. It is an image made before the war, yet one which certainly portrays the suffering and death and pathos that follows.
