Michelangelos Pieta and Last Judgment

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.
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 and his demons. The picture is frightening, jolting, bold and convincing. It serves as a reminder to Catholics that there will be a final judgment conducted by Christ and only those who lead a good life and die in the state of grace will be taken to a final reward to join God in Paradise. The picture is dynamic because it depicts people still wrestling between Heaven and Hell, with angels and saints in Heaven trying to help them make the climb upward while devils try to pull the soul downward. Christ is seen lifting his arm in a swirl of activity as though he were directing the whole drama.
There is a great deal of nudity in the Last Judgment, which seems odd as it is painted on an altar wall in a Church. However, because of the humanistic influence of the times, this was appropriate: no one had ever depicted human beings in art the way Michelangelo did. He painted them not in a realistic way but rather in a perfect way—i.e., in the way that he imagined them to be in their state of perfection. He embellished their muscle tone and physiognomy so as to demonstrate his own mastery of knowledge of human anatomy but also out of respect for God’s creation—the human being, which had so much beauty and potential that Michelangelo felt compelled to show humans in a nude state that reflected the glory of God’s creation as it might have appeared before the Fall. In this manner, Michelangelo was reflecting the human form in a kind of pristine manner that was meant to remind the viewer of the awesome power and creative force of God, Who intended mankind to be shameless—but a result of sin and defiance, mankind was awash in sin (Johnson). Michelangelo thus raises these issues in his art work and challenges his viewers to consider the nature of sin and grace as they look upon his paintings.
At the same time, the Last Judgment was being painted just as Europe was beginning to tear itself apart as a result of the Protestant Reformation. The Protestants, from Luther to Calvin to Knox to Zwingli were protesting the Mass and the teachings of the Church. Michelangelo’s Last Judgment was almost like a Counter-Reformation work in that it re-affirmed the principle teachings of the Church and was painted on the alter wall behind the altar where the Sacrifice of the Mass would be celebrated by Roman Catholic priests. As Michelangelo himself was a Catholic it was only natural that he create works that supported the teachings of his Church and that served to reinforce the ideas that the Protestants were fighting against. The Last Judgment is thus significant because it serves as a vision of what the world would face at the end of time, even while Christendom was being torn in two by warring factions.
In conclusion, Michelangelo’s Pieta (1499) and Last Judgment (1541) are separated by four decades of work in Michelangelo’s career as an artist. Having started out as a sculptor, he transitioned to painting (and dabbled in architecture as well), and painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel before turning his attention to the altar wall for the Last Judgment. The Pieta depicts the Virgin Mary in a position of grieving sorrow as she mourns for her dead Son and for sinners who might die unrepentant, insensitive to the sacrifice made on their behalf by Christ. Michelangelo would return to this theme forty years later, though tackling it from a different perspective—this time from the perspective of Christ Who has returned to make judgment on the living and the dead, saints and sinners alike. Those who might not have appreciated His sacrifice are not brought face to face with the reality of His Divinity and are sent off to the inferno—or to Heaven, where they otherwise have directed their hearts and minds.
Works Cited
Johnson, Paul. Art: A New History. NY: Gallery, 2003.
Kleiner, F. Gardner's Art Through the Ages, Vol II, Western Perspective, (15th/e).
Thomson/Wadsworth, 2016.