Pietà (detail) by Annibale Carracci (c. 1603)

At the end of the sixteenth-century the north Italian city of Bologna emerged as a leading centre for the visual arts. Pivotal to the fame of this papal city were three members of the Carracci family, Annibale, his brother Agostino, and their cousin Lodovico. Annibale later moved to Rome, where he established himself as an heir to the masters of the high Renaissance, especially Raphael. This exquisite painting in oil on copper of the subject known as the Pietà depicts the moment after Christ has been taken down from the cross and placed in his mother’s lap. Mary’s exhausted body lies slumped against the side of her son’s tomb. Her face appears drained of all life. Indeed the deathly pallor of both mother and son is heightened by the cool tones of Mary’s intensely blue robes. For a moment the still, almost serene figures of the Virgin and her son appear suspended in a timeless image of grief, where the bloody nails and crown of thorns nevertheless dispel the meditative mood. These brutal symbols of Christ’s suffering remind the viewer of the horror of what has happened. The allusion to pain makes the startling use of blue appeal even more strongly to our emotions.

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