Hunt museum Pieta project 10-2-014

  Having never had the opportunity to experience the visual power, of Michael Angelo’s Pieta, I have chosen the white porcelain created in Dresden by Kandler in 1732,as the subject for my project in Hunt Museum, and to relate it to modern visual culture.

 

     

 When I am in the presence of this work, it creates visual connotations for me of images of civilian casualties that are all too familiar in any armed conflict or war, from classical history to our present day news media saturated environment. Even today as we turn on our  T.V screens we are presented with identical images from the conflict in Syria. The Pieta for me is symbolic of all the mothers and fathers who have lost children to violent conflict throughout history. 

 

 In my project, I am investigating how modern day visual mediums for viewing such images have changed radically the way we perceive and interact with these images. As we view our television screens, we see these images in a moving sequence, each image treated as of equal importance by the visual medium. A news program communicating the horrors of war or famine, may be proceeded or followed by programs or advertisements containing images of celebrity or products for sale, all are reduced to media images.

Iconography of the Pieta

                     ICONOGRAPHY OF THE PIETA.

          The Pieta statue by the renaissance sculptor Michael Angelo completed in (1499), which resides in St Peters basilica in Rome, is one of the most revered and iconographic works of Western Art. Even for the non-believer or for those who practise religious faiths other than Christianity, the work has the power to evoke feeling of reverence and contemplation in the viewer. The Pieta inhabits a building that by the very nature of its design and construction was created to produce feelings of awe and wonder for those who entered it. Within its walls the viewer was would see works of art within   

Architecture that would create an aura of devotion and reverence.

It could reasonable be argued that even in what has been described as a post Christian age these works of art still have the power to create feelings as described above to present day visitor to St Peters basilica.

         A very casual investigation of present day culture of present day visual culture, provides many present day examples of imagery that have very close iconographical links with the symbolism of the Pieta, some of these links are of an accidental nature and many are created and designed to create these very definite connotations.

History of the pieta in Northern Europe.

The Pieta is one three common representation of the Virgin Mary ,the other two being Mater Dolorosa (Mother of Sorrows) and Stator Mater(Here Stands The Mother). The Pieta originated in Germany where it was called the Vesperbild around 1300 it reached Italy around 1400. 1 Bohemian Pieta 1390 -1400. 2nd Austrian Pieta 1420.3rd.Cologne Pieta 15th century.4th Swabian Pieta 1500.