Pieta COLLECTION (SAU 23)

Between The Descent from the Cross and The Entombment, Christ was lamented… most especially by His mother. The term Pieta, derived from the Italian word for ‘pity’, is given to the third—and final--type of depiction of the grieving BVM. In a Pieta, Mary cradles the body of Jesus on her lap just as she had cradled him as a child. Here, in a somewhat unusual departure from more familiar versions in sculpture or painting, Mary is seen sitting not on the ground at the foot of the cross but on a tomb. Tombs cut horizontally into cliff faces as in 1st century Palestine were unfamiliar to Western European artists of the Middle Ages. Gothic artists portrayed what they knew: stone sarcophagi. That the tomb as pictured would be too small for the figure of Christ is another hallmark of medieval art. It is emotion not accuracy that counts here: The scene captures an intimate moment between mother and son and evokes pity in the viewer.