Pietà

This work invites the viewer to participate in the grief of the tragic event of Christ’s crucifixion by giving it an immediacy that makes it seem as if it happening before the beholder’s eyes. The gruesome details of Christ’s wounds highlight his suffering. His body is stiff with death and yet still bleeds: blood is visible around his crown, and drips from the wound in his side and from the nail holes in his hand. Although the sculpted Pietà was made famous by Michelangelo, it was a Northern type, and this one represents the intense emotional and physical expressionism typical of these kinds of German and Austrian sculptures. This work is hollowed out in the back, and was probably placed in a chapel, where only the front was visible.