Pieta, the greatest sculpture of the renaissance

Michelangelo was only fascinated by the male nude which is evident in all his sculpture. Except for Virgin Mary, he was focused on his favourite subject that promelled him to heights that no one so far has achieved. Except for one or two he was happy on his chosen art on clay and marble.

And Michelangelo was the only sculptor who dared to put a stark naked dying Christ on the cross (out of deep reverence I do not wish to publish this picture). Today, if anyone dared doing it, he will raise a storm of protests. But this sculpture called Crucifix is one of the best I have seen. The lean, tall and slender hanging on the cross looking down is a marvel. Every nerve or muscle strained with pain without even a mere sign of regret is a masterpiece of classical purity that is lofty in individuality if one were to look at it in that kind of perspective.

Pieta (part of the sculpture) by Michelangelo at the Vatican

This classic of the Crucifix (135x135) sited in Florence (casa Buonarroti) moves tears even from a hard core aethist. Though recognised and world-acclaimed for his Pieta, I personally feel Crucifix supercede his sculpture mastery in depth of Christian philosophy. It reveals Christ's agony on the cross and the trauma within before He yields His spirit while the dead Christ on Mary's lap, has breathed His last, devoid of any feeling on His face and read to be buried as Michelangelo saw and he was right. One Christ was about to die while the other already dead. Though so difficult unlike in painting to capture emotion on sculpture, he was a marvel at it.

But like all other great painters and sculptors who tend to err even minutely, Michelangelo has made one glaring mistake in the Pieta, Christ when he died he had passed his thirty third year according to the Holy scriptures and very cleverly Michelangelo had captured his age. But take a look at Mary as He lay in her lap and she appears to be late teenager, around sixteen or eighteen. She could have been well past her fifty as Christ was in His early thirties. But we as all good Christians think and accept the spirit of Christ on her remained the same when He was born to her. But try explaining this to a non-Christian?

Mary was always sculptured as a youthful mother, always looking down. Even at the cross, she remained so perhaps crying while Mary Magdalene who loved Jesus Christ so much and He in return, is looking up in anguish and torn love.

Vatican is Pieta and Pieta is Vatican.

And will remain thus because one cannot separate the two phenomenons that Michelangelo personified with such loving care to perfection, hailed by the world as the greatest sculpture of the Renaissance.

If one were to study closely his sculpture, there is a variety of themes built on theology and philosophy though he was no Christian academic but a virtuoso sculptor.

His best stark nude that span across realms of the universe is David (410 cm) and sited in Florence (Galleria dell' Accademia) which can be studied and observed from any angle which is why it is so unique. But the Cricifix has pathos, emotion and a helplessness that touch every heart, every soul as against David who look like a playboy if I were to use a modern term.

Michelangelo was influenced by Vesperbid, a north of the Alps portrayel of the Modonna holding on to the dead Christ in her arms and connected with the idea of redemption.

The sculptor thought otherwise and came up with the PIETA boldly and fiercely with utter passion and mind the fact that he was only twenty three years old. This idea was never attempted before and neither to date. It depicts Mary looking down on the lifeless body of her son on her lap.

There is an exquisite expression in Mary's eyes though so young in looks that any maestro who tried his best to fathom this marvel could not understand how an artist in short a time executed such a divine work erupting from such a young mind. In a literal sense this divine monument is a bit difficult to understand unless you possess the mind of Michelangelo who has sculptured perfect earthly beauty with the pains of redemption that theologians still try to unravel both the absolute beauty and its ethics.

Michelangelo

The greatest of all Renaissance artists, he sickens me at times will all his male nudes that famed him. He was born in March, 1475 at Capreese, Tuscany as Michelangelo Buonarroti as one among the five male siblings. He never lived luxuriously, never married and unlike his fellow artists, tried to be snobbish and attempted to better his social status. He much cared for his widowed father and brothers.

Pieta by Michelangelo, h 174 cms at the Vatican

Yet Michelangelo tried hard to be the puritan of his time and failed miserably. He spent the better part of his childhood in Florence and was only six when his mother died. For many years Michelangelo boasted that his family had belonged to one of the uppermost in the country but it was not so.

He worked till very late into his life, infact until six days he passed away with old age. It was during the turbulent years that Christian religion was swept away especially by the violent surge of the Reformation. No other artist managed to portray this change as he did. In a sense, he was an artist of form, mannerism, philosopher, and a prince able to express the perfect terrestrial reality according to his friend and contemporary, Giorgio Vasari.

He was a prince of the Renaissance.

Throughout his life, Michelangelo regretted his years with Pope Julius II when he learnt what his real character was. It was during his time that Michelangelo went to Rome in 1505. It took him an year to find the difference and the atmosphere of the Papal court, far from his. The Pope received him with imperial commission to build during five years for 10,000 ducats a tomb for the Pope. Taken by surprise he agreed. It had to contain life forty six statues that should surround the tomb and 23 feet wide, 36 1/2 feet deep and 26 1/2 high. It had to be a free standing tomb and contain an oval funerary well. Never had Michelangelo heard of anything like this in the West.

'Absurd, arrogant' he thought but had to comply wilt papal orders.

This was to be an outline of the Christian world according to icongraphic plans. Michelangelo threw a fit. He was faced with a daunting task of gracing prophets and saints of Divine bliss at the top level and surpassing both former levels in the last judgement. The levels had to contain female figures with nude men in chains. They were none other than representations of the virtues of Liberal Arts but they were not to be presented as pure personification of the high ideals.

There were to be two angels leading the Pope out of the tomb on the day of the last judgement.

If I was Michelangelo, I would have thrown the plan on the Pope's face and walked out even if I were to be persecuted which they did on the sly.

Instead Michelangelo immediately began the preparation of the task. But now he was to discover the scheming attitude, imperious and capricious character of his patron, the Pope. In doubt of finding an appropriate to place the erect the tomb, planned something even better which was restoration and remodelling of St Peter's while on these new projects Michelangelo tried in vain to obtain a Papal audience but was finally thrown out of the palace by a solider on the 17th of April which was the day the first stone of St Peter's was to be held. In distress and utter disappointment, he fled Rome and made his way to Florence. During the two following years his heart was filled with fear and bitterness but by order of Julius II he had to stay in Bologna to complete his other commissions.

(Why wasn't Julius Assange born with his website?)

Later he was allowed to begin his work on the tomb. He also had another task of painting the Twelve apostles and a few ornaments on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. However, the nasty Pope got around Michelangelo and an affinity between them led to the artist painting over 300 figures on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.