Michelangelo's Florentine Pietà - a Self-Portrait of the Artist's Life

How does a proud, ambitious and complex man envisage his own tomb sculpture? Michelangelo’s Florentine Pieta is just as proud, ambitious and complex as the man, whose life it was meant to represent.

After the 1506 discovery of Laocoon and His Sons sculpture, Michelangelo had set a challenge for himself to create a four-figure group out of a single block of marble. The Laocoon

was actually constructed out of seven marble blocks and is only a three-figure design (if you don’t count the serpent) - Michelangelo was clearly trying to outdo the great masters of Antiquity.

His virtuoso ability to achieve harmony and balance as well as his capacity for conveying emotion through movement conceals the fact that the sculpture is unfinished.

So unfinished, in fact, that the chisel marks can be seen all over the sculpture, Christ is missing a leg and the Virgin’s face is incomplete. It’s clear that Michelangelo ran into a lot of trouble, while carving, possibly biting off more than he could chew. He eventually abandoned the work and gave it away to a friend, Francesco Bandini.

Nevertheless, for the sophisticated eye of the contemporary viewer, capable of extracting the essence that transcends the polished surfaces, this piece is profoundly moving. The grief of the Virgin Mary is palpable – we read it in her face, pressed to her son’s head and in the gesture of her arm, embracing his lifeless body. The kneeling Mary Magdalene, who frames him on the opposite side, is solemn and subdued. The fourth and final figure, that forms the apex of the group is Nicodemus – a Pharisee, who came to Jesus under the cover of darkness to listen to his teachings. He later assisted in the Christ’s burial. It is widely accepted by scholars that the face of the hooded figure is Michelangelo’s self-portrait. But more comprehensively, the sculpture as a whole, is a portrait of the artist’s incessant search for penitence and purpose.

Michelangelo, Florentine Pietà, ca. 1547-55