Pieta
Artist: William-Adolphe Bouguereau
1876
Painting
This is a large-scale interpretation of the classic Pietà theme, showing the Virgin Mary mourning the body of Christ. At the center of the composition, consumed by her black veil, Mary cradles her child, entreating the viewer to pity with her gaze. Golden aureoles, resembling the gold-leaf details on Renaissance icons and altar-work, surround the heads of the two central figures, while a group of mourning angels encircles the scene, echoing the central compositional shapes.
This oil on canvas is in a private collection
Pietà
Artist: José Ribera
1637
Painting
The painting is in oils on canvas and its dimensions are 157 x 210 cm. It is owned by the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid. Ribera painted two other known canvases of the same subject. One is in the San Martino Museum and the other is in the National Gallery, London.
The work is part of a transition period in which the artist, without leaving the shadows of tenebrism, began to experiment with brighter coloring inspired by the work of artists such as Rubens and van Dyck.
The body of Christ is framed horizontally in the foreground of the composition. On the right, John the Apostle supports the subject's back while the grieving Mary Magdalene kisses Christ's feet. In the center is Mary with a face ravaged by pain looking to the sky and placing her hands together in prayer. At the upper right, the face of Joseph of Arimathea emerges from the darkness, veiled by the chiaroscuro technique.
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