Stylistic Analysis of Pieta and Cultural Context Analysis of Sistine Chapel Ceiling
Instructions
Your Midterm assignment requires you to submit TWO essays. Please read all the instructions carefully before beginning.
Part 1: Stylistic Analysis (50 points)
Choose one of the images posted by your instructor in the Stylistic Analysis category. Write an essay discussing its STYLISTIC significance. Be sure to cover the following points in your analysis:
Identify the artist, title, period, style, and medium.
Analyze the stylistic characteristics (light, line, color, scale, medium, and subject matter).
Why is the artwork stylistically significant? How does it represent its regional, religious, or cultural style?
What stylistic influences can you identify?
Be sure to apply specific art historical terms (from the Glossary) in your answer.
Use complete sentences and paragraphs including an introduction and conclusion.
Part 2: Analysis of Cultural Context (50 points)
Choose one of the images posted by your instructor in the Cultural Analysis category. Write an essay discussing its CULTURAL significance. Be sure to cover the following points in your analysis:
Identify the artist, title, period, style, and medium.
Discuss the subject matter of the artwork. Does it contain any iconography, symbolism, narrative, story, or message?
Discuss the cultural (religious, historical, political) context of the artwork.
Why is this artwork culturally significant? What does it tell us about the culture, religion, or region that produced it?
Helpful Tip
Please remember to do the following:
Please refer to the Criteria for complete grading criteria.
Each essay should be one to two pages in length, double-spaced, 12 pt. font.
Be sure to apply specific art historical terms (vocabulary) in your answers.
Use complete sentences and paragraphs including an introduction and conclusion.
Cite all your sources, including the module material, using MLA format.
AAU Library Art History Research Guide (including Chicago Style citations for AHS majors)
AAU Library MLA Citation and Research Guide
More Tips for Using MLA Format
How to Cite Online Course Content Using MLA Format
Give the instructor name.
Then list the title of the course in italics.
Give school name and semester start date, then the URL, and the date you accessed the material.
See example below:
Everett, Eileen. Art History Through the 19th Century. Academy of Art U, June 2021, http://discussion(dot)academyart(dot)edu/courseContentDisplay/section/184119/module_1/session_03.html. Accessed 8 September, 2021.
Purpose
To demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of what we have covered in the first half of the course and apply art historical terminology to evaluate how an artwork exemplifies its period, style, and culture.
Write in one file
Instructor:
Course:
Date:
1 Stylistic Analysis 2 Analysis of Cultural Context
1 Stylistic Analysis
The image I chose for stylistic analysis is the Pieta by Michelangelo Buonarroti, which is currently housed in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City. Cardinal Jean de Bilheres commissioned the Italian Renaissance sculpture to adorn the side chapel at Old St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Michelangelo worked for a little over a year (1498 to 1499) to sculpt the body of Jesus draped across his mother Mary's lap after his crucifixion, death, and removal from the cross. Michelangelo balanced the Renaissance ideals of classical beauty with naturalism when carving the scene from a block of Carrara marble. The scene of the Madonna cradling Christ was already popular among northern European artists, particularly in France and Germany, by the time Michelangelo produced the groundbreaking art. Several stylistic characteristics define Pieta as a masterpiece.
The first of these is the line: while the mood of the sculpture is somber and captures Mary's sorrowful contemplation of his son's death, Michelangelo used lines in the composition to give the work energy and life. The figures of Mary and Jesus have prominent diagonal lines that uniquely structure the work based on stability, movement, calmness, and action. These lines also give realism to the sculpture and speak specifically to the humanism engrained in work. For instance, the diagonal lines direct the viewer's eyes to Mary's downward sorrowful gaze, illustrating her connection with the man lying on her lap. It also results in a strong composition of pity and compassion, which is alluded to in the work's title. The diagonal lines give an intriguing and lifelike aura to the sculpture: the folds of Mary's clothing create repetitive lines while Jesus's body has fewer distinct lines, all of which emphasize the latter's energy and life, on the one hand, and the former's lifelessness, on the other. Michelangelo also employs color in the statue to give implied and actual texture. He used the Buon fresco technique of painting rapidly on wet plaster to capture the humanism in the scene. For instance, Mary's face has a glowing texture which gives her small, delicate face the ambiance of purity and longevity, a critical feature that the artist sought to capture.
Michelangelo cleverly applied the Buon fresco technique to give the figures' skin, clothes, and hair their texture: the sculpture appears to have varied textures, and, giving Another stylistic characteristic of the statue is shape: the Pieta has a symmetrical triangular structure where the top vertex coincides with Mary's head. At the same time, the other two points are situated at the figures' feet. The sculpture broadens progressively from Mary's head down her drapery to the base of the work: Jesus's feet are situated at one of the base points, while the pedestal on which Mary supports one of her feet forms the other. This triangular shape balances the statue and heightens the connection between Mary and Jesus. There is a sense of authentic reciprocity and mutuality between the two figures. There is also the manipulation of scale, a stylistic device that gives the sculpture a relatively convincing image of Mary carrying Jesus, a fully-grown man, on her lap. Although much of Mary's body is hidden from view by her clothing, her figure is significantly larger than Jesus'. Mary dominates the statute, and it is easy for the viewer to see how she manages to carry her son's lifeless body on her lap. Her spread-out legs form the statue's triangular base and support the inert body of Jesus.
The statute is significant because it illustrates Mary's complete acceptance of her son's destiny: even in her sorrow, she embraces her dead son and accepts hi...