Michelangelos Pieta and Last Judgment Term Paper

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Michelangelo’s Pieta was completed in 1499 when the sculptor was just 24 years old. The artist’s Last Judgment—the enormous fresco covering the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel—was completed more than 40 years later in 1541 when the artist was in his mid-60s and after he had traded the chisel for the paint brush. Michelangelo was an Italian Renaissance artist who could do it all—but these two works represent the greatness of his skill at both the beginning of his career and at the end of his career. This paper will compare and contrast these two works and show how they fit in with the surrounding time period of the artist.

The subject matter of Michelangelo’s Pieta is the sorrow of the Virgin Mary at the death of her Son, who had been crucified on the cross. While Christ redeemed mankind, the sacrifice was especially painful for His mother, who felt the loss of her Son most keenly. Accompanying this sorrow is the feeling that there will still be some who reject the gift of salvation. This feeling is displayed in the bearing, limbs and face of the Virgin as she looks down at her Son in her lap. As Paul Johnson notes, the sculpture of the Pieta was considered at the time to be Michelangelo’s greatest success (and is even still considered by some to be so). It certainly attracted the attention of the Pope, who thereafter wanted Michelangelo to come work for him at the Vatican.

The Pieta was sculpted from a single piece of marble. It was placed inside St. Peter’s Basilica where the embrace of the Virgin to the Son’s sacrifice was an example to all those who practiced the Catholic religion. Michelangelo’s use of line connects the two figures in a triangle formation, which also represents the Triune God—or the Trinity, of which Christ is the Second Person. From the Virgin’s head, two lines extend downward in her extended arms, which lead to the Son in her lap. Christ’s body extends from knee to knee and forms the other side of the triangle line. The symmetrical design of the sculpture give the composition a sense of wholeness while the curves and folds of the Virgin’s robes give her a fantastic vitality as though this figure etched in stone were really a living person frozen for a moment in time and turned to stone for ever to be gazed upon by a wondrous public.

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Michelangelo’s ability to represent the human form so splendidly was partly rooted in the humanism of the age. Humanism had arrived during the Renaissance as artists looked to the ancient Romans and Greeks for inspiration. They united many of the styles and forms and ideas with the religious themes and subjects that were popular during the Renaissance. As artists and patrons sought more dynamic representations of real life, artists like Michelangelo spent more time and energy on reflecting every muscle and turn of the human body in their art. The more expertly they could reflect the human form in their art, the more prized their works were viewed to be (Kleiner).

The Pieta is similar in subject to Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, commissioned towards the end of his career, though the two are different in terms of medium. The Pieta is an important religious subject (the death of Christ), and the Last Judgment is another important religious subject (the Second Coming of Christ at the end of the world). While the Pieta is a sculpture of a two solitary figures, the Last Judgment is a dynamic, sprawling, epic painting that covers an entire wall, floor to ceiling and consists of dozens of characters as they are depicted in various states of ascension to Heaven or descent into Hell. At the center of the whirling fresco is Christ, Who has come back to the world to judge the living and the dead. Those who have been faithful to God are taken to Heaven and those who have been unfaithful and dragged off to Hell by Satan….....

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