The presentation will focus almost exclusively on the powerful iconography of the Pietà . The Pietà remains one of the most profound visual expressions in art, religion and in politics.
Throughout history, artists and sculptors from the medieval world to the modern and contemporary one have sought to exploit the nature of the Pietà as a vehicle with which to draw a dynamic parallel between the gravity of the physical suffering endured by Christ’s Crucifixion and the emotional grief of the Virgin, and that of humanity in a tortured world, a world often afflicted by the ravishes of warfare, plagues and pestilence, suffering and death. From a religious dimension, the spirituality of the Pietà was a purely meditative and contemplative subject matter, intended primarily for reflection and devotion. But in Christian art, it empowered artists and sculptors alike with a sense of liberation to express themselves by means of idealisation and realism, in accordance with the artistic impulse of the time.
