When most of us hear the word PIETA, we think of Michelangelo’s famous image in St. Peter’s Basicila at the
The Pietà is one of the three primary representations of the Virgin Mary in sorrow; along with the Stabat Mater (stands the mother) and the Mater Dolorosa (Mother of Sorrows). These representations were prevalent in Christian iconography from the thirteenth century onwards – in painting, sculpture and musical compositions as in the case of the Stabat Mater.
The pietà developed in
Early Pietàs often made Christ’s body much smaller than the Virgin Mary’s, signifying the idea of the mother holding her dead child in her arms. His wounds were also very prominent in such works, to reinforce the suffering He endured on the cross.
One of my favorites- though so many modern works of the pieta show great pathos, certainly to peoples who have suffered from war and privation of freedom - is by Wiktoria Gorynska, a Polish artist, who painted this in 1929. For me it represents the stripped uniform we see in photographs of the prisoners of war released in WWII. It is as if our Mother takes one of them into her grieving arms.
"I took my tender Child on my lap and looked at Him, but He was dead: I looked at Him again and again and could have shattered into a thousand pieces from those mortal wounds it received. It gave many bottomless sighs: the eyes shed many heartbroken bitter tears, my appearance became utterly miserable.”
Heinrich Suso, The Exemplar (1295 — 1366)
IMAGES:
Top -
1990
Left - Krishen Khanna –
Rt. - Bogdon Cierpisz -
Left- Gloria Todd Jones American 1990
Rt. Wiktoria Gorynska
Left. - Jan Karan- Czech Rep. 1995
Rt. - Wladystaw Skoczylas - Poland 1934
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