A comparison of The Florentine Pietà (Michelangelo, c.1547 - 1555) and Jenny Saville's Pietà I (2019 - 2021)

Jenny Saville's current retrospective at the UKs National Portrait Gallery (NPG) includes a piece titled Pietà I which, according to the accompanying description, was a response to Michelangelo's marble sculpture The Deposition (c. 1547 - 1555; also called the Bandini Pietà, The Florentine Pietà, and The Lamentation over the Dead Christ). I discuss the inspirational work as well as the genesis and execution of Ms. Saville's response. Both pieces are depicted below.

The sculpting of The Deposition was initiated after Michelangelo's 75th birthday with the finished product destined for his family tomb as "a memorial for himself and his family." It is carved from a single block of marble and depicts four individuals: (i) the dead body of Jesus (lowered from the Cross but prior to embalming); (ii) Nicodemus (or, possibly Joseph of Arimethia; assumed to be carved as a self-portrait of Michelangelo himself); (iii) the Virgin Mary; and (iv) Mary Magdalene (staring out at the viewer). In order to fit four figures into this single block of marble, Michelangelo had to compress the figures and resorted to techniques such as the effects of distortion and foreshortening -- practices common in painting but not in sculpture.

For reasons unknown, Michelangelo took a hammer to the sculpture prior to its completion, damaging Christ's left arm and leg and "removing several parts ..." He gave the damaged sculpture to a to a wealthy businessman named Francesco Bandini (origin of the name Bandini Pietà). Knowing of the working and professional relationship between Michelangelo and one Tiberio Calcagno, Bandini hired the latter to complete the sculpture. Calcagno repaired the hammer damage by reattaching the broken parts (with the exception of the left leg) and completed the sculpting of Mary Magdalene (note the textural difference between the Magdalene and the other figures).

The Bandini family sold the sculpture to Cosimo III in 1680. It currently resides in Il Grande Museo del Duomo in Florence (origin of the name The Florentine Pietà).

Jenny Saville, according to exhibition literature,

... is one of the world's foremost contemporary painters who rose to prominence in the early 1990s following her acclaimed degree show at the Glasgow School of Art.

In subsequent years, she has played a leading role in the reinvigoration of figurative painting ... Her ability to create visceral portraits from various layers of paint reveals an artist with a deep passion for the painting process itself.

In a 2021 exhibition curated by Sergio Risaliti, director of Florence's Museo Novocento, Seville's works (prior as well as purpose-built) were paired with works from Italian Renaissance artists and displayed at the Museo Novocento, Museo di Palazzo Vecchio, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Museo degli Innocente, and the Museo di Casa Buonarroti. Seville created Pietà I to accompany the Bandini Pietà at the Museo dell'Opera di Duomo. 

Seville was able to study the Bandini Pietà onsite and, during one of her visits, spoke with the conservationists who were cleaning the marble. She was able to gain new insights from those conversations which informed and inspired her efforts on the project.

Pietà I was displayed alongside the Bandini Pietà during the exhibition. The paining -- charcoal and pastel on a 9-foot-high raw canvas -- displays one fleshy, contemporarily garbed individual supine in the lap of one or more of a set of undefined bodies attached to a fan of five heads. The painting is titled Pietà I but a Pietà is defined as a picture or sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding the dead body of the Christ either on her lap or in her arms. It is not clear if the supine body is a modern interpretation of Jesus Christ nor is it clear as to whose lap it occupies. The arms that are embracing the body, with the fingers of the right hand digging into same, appears masculine. According to gagosian.com, this painting offers "a revelatory encounter between the contemporary and the historical."

When viewed side-by-side, Saville's departures from the original are clearly visible:

• The Michelangelo sculpture is pyramidal with Nicodemus' headpiece almost functioning as a capstone. Saville's piece is more fulsome with a protractor shape at its top end. The protractor shape comes into play in the Michelangelo piece at level 2 of the sculpture.
• The Michelangelo piece clearly is telling a biblical story. It is unclear as to whether there is an underlying story in the Saville piece
• Jesus is at the center of the Michelangelo sculpture and his body fits totally within the frame of the piece. The supine body in the Saville piece extends outside the framing provided by the other subjects
• Jesus is emaciated and distorted in the Michelangelo piece. The supine in Saville's pice had not missed many meals
• Clothing in the Michelangelo piece is period-relevant while clothing in the Saville is contemporary to non-existent.
• Only one leg of Jesus is visible in the Bandini Pietà with the other lower-body extremities hidden behind draped clothing. There is a veritable forest of unassociated, tree-trunk-like legs in the Saville piece
• With the exception of Mary Magdalene, who is staring out at the viewer, all eyes in the Michelangelo piece are focused on Jesus. In the Saville piece some eyes are open, some are closed; some heads are turned downwards while other support stares into the great beyond.

As I view these two pieces side by side I get an overarching sense of sadness from the Bandini Pietà but I also get a sense of solidity, firmness, and order. The Saville piece, on the other hand, conjures up words such as ephemeral, confusion, disorder, disarray, lack of control, and search for meaning. I was not very familiar with Ms. Saville's works prior to my visit to the retrospective at the NPG but my interest has now been fully piqued.

The Divine Michelangelo: His Life and his works

Washington DC was cold, grey, foggy, and wet last Saturday. Downwright dreary, and a great time to be indoors at the Smithsonian Institution exploring the works of of "The Divine Michelangelo" in a day-long seminar led by Art Historian Rocky Ruggerio (Rocky is an Art History professor and an Italian Renaissance expert. His bio can be found here.).

The opening slide in the professor's presentation was a portrait of Michelangelo done by Danielle de Volterra in 1550 and now in Teylers Museum in Haarlem.

According to Rocky, Michelangelo got a late start as an artist because his father was not too keen on that course; in that time it was a low-status calling. He was, instead, enrolled in a Humanist school at 10 years of age. At the age of 13 he was apprenticed to Domenico Ghirlandaio, a very important painter of the time. At the time of the apprenticeship, Ghirlandaio was engaged in painting the frescoes at the Tornabuoni Chapel, an effort that ran from 1485 to 1490.

Michelangelo was a precocious talent as evidenced by the fact that (i) his father was able to convince the Master to pay the apprentice (an unheard of situation) and (ii) when Lorenzo de Medici asked Ghirlandaio to send over two of his best students, Michelangelo was one of the two.

From 1490 to 1492 Michelangelo lived in the Medici Palace, interacting with, and learning from, the humanists living and teaching therein. While there he became friends with Giovanni Medici (who became Pope Leo X) and Guilo Medici (who became Pope Clement VII). According to Rocky, this friendship is demonstrated in the informal tones in the written communications between Michelangelo and these two powerful men.

The chart below is a pictorial summary of Michelangelo's work over his lifetime.

Michelangelo's first sculpture, Battle of the Centaurs, was completed in 1492. The subject is drawn from Ovid's Metamorphoses but the actual work is a glorification of the male nude form -- an overarching theme in the sculptor's works. Michelangelo was 17 years old when this effort was completed. It is currently housed in the Casa Buonarroti in Florence.

His second effort was Madonna of the Stairs, also completed in 1492. Both of his first two works were done in shallow relief (Rocky referred to it as relief flat), a technique wherein "... the plane is only very slightly lower than the sculpted elements." Rocky asked a rhetorical question as to why would Michelangelo be working in relief in his early years. In Rocky's view, Michelangelo, in his early years, was compared to Donatello who had invented this low, low relief process. In order to prove himself worthy of the comparisons, Michelangelo had to prove that he could acquit himself credibly using the Donatello techniques.

Bacchus was completed in 1496 when Michelangelo was 21 years of age. This was his first known professional contract. The sculpture is currently housed in the Bargetto Museum in Florence. The work was initially commissioned by Raffaele Riario  but he rejected it, probably due to the perception of inebriation projected by the piece, and it was subsequently picked up by his banker, Jacopo Galli.

Galli also purchased Michelangelo's next work, the Pietà, which was completed in 1498. This, according to Rocky, is one interpretation of the topic called Pietà; but it is the most famous representation. Rocky noted the incredible youth of Mary's face. When this piece was unveiled, people were blown away but no one knew who had done the work. During the night, Michelangelo climbed the statue and carved the following onto the surface: "Michelangelo Buonarroti of Florence made this." This is the only one of his works that he has signed. The piece currently resides in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

David is one of the most iconic sculptures of the modern age. Michelangelo carved this between 1501 and 1504, between his 26th and 29th years. The contract was let by the Building Center for Florence Cathedral in 1460, well before Michelangelo's birth. The sculpture was destined to be placed high-up on one of the Cathedral's buttresses. The first contract was canceled due to dissatisfaction with the sculptor. Antonio Rossolini was given the contract 10 years later but he was also fired.

When Michelangelo completed the effort, it was deemed too large to be placed on the buttress so the decision was made to place it in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. The statue was unveiled on September 8, 1504. The statue remained in the Piazza until 1873 when it was moved into the Galleria dell' Accademia. According to Rocky, this painting transcends the subject matter.

The Doni Tondo is the first painting that we have seen from Michelangelo. The patron of the piece was Angelo Doni and tondo means circular painting; hence the painting's name. The piece was completed in 1505 and currently resides in the Uffizi Gallery. The Classical, Greco-Roman, pagan world is represented in the background and the foreground represents the christian world. John the Baptist serves as a link between the two.

Pope Julius II wanted to restore Rome to its former glory. As a part of that vision, in 1505 he summoned Michelangelo to Rome to create a monumental tomb for him. The Pope subsequently re-directed Michelangelo from the tomb effort to painting the Sistine Chapel Ceiling. Michelangelo was paid 3000 Papal ducats for the effort. He hired a team to work with him but by the end of the process was doing most of the work himself. Early panels show greater number of individuals per panel but very quickly Michelangelo went to fewer, larger beings per panel. While there is a myth that he painted the ceilings while lying on his back, Michelangelo's correspondence, sketches, and griping show him painting while standing up. Michelangelo was not happy about doing this job, at one time supposing that his enemies had gotten him this assignment to punish him. This work was revealed on October 3, 1512.

Right after completion of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, Michelangelo did the Moses and Dying Slave statues. 

Pope Leo X had Michelangelo do some design work for a facade for the Medici church in San Lorenzo. Work on this effort was suspended after Leo changed his mind and had Michelangelo work on the New Sacristy at San Lorenzo instead. This was Michelangelo's first architectural effort and he designed everything in the structure. The work was completed between 1519 and 1534 and included tombs of Lorenzo and Giuliano Medici and a sculpture of the Medici Madonna.

The Laurelton Library was designed in great detail by Michelangelo and he oversaw the work until he left Florence in 1539. The library was finally completed in 1571, based on the detailed plans that Michelangelo had left behind. The Staircase and the Reading Room of the library are exemplary pieces of functional art.

The Last Judgment, covering the entire altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, was worked on between 1536 and 1541.

Michelangelo completed two additional Pietàs before his death in 1564. The first, The Deposition, shows Jesus after he has been taken down from the cross and prior to deposition in the tomb. The person standing at the rear of the scene is thought to represent either Joseph of Arimathea or Nicodemus. In either case, it is thought to be a self-portrait of Michelangelo. To jesus' left is the Virgin Mary and to his right, Mary Magdalene. This piece was abandoned by Michelangelo prior to completion and it is thought that he actually attempted to destroy it. The work was restored (and completed?) by one Tiberio Calcagni. Note the scale difference between Mary Magdalene and the other subjects, probably an indication of the use of available material to fill out the sculpture.

The final sculpture that Michelangelo worked on was the Rondonini Pietà, completed in 1560 and resident in Castello Sforzesco in Milan. Rocky described this sculpture as frail and waif-like.

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