Michelangelo's Pieta Mother Mary with Jesus Statue

This religious statue is a near exact replica based on Michelangelo's "Pieta", called as such because it shows the Virgin Mary statue mourning over the dead body of Jesus that she holds in her arms. Interestingly Pieta is Italian for "pity". Pietas have been carved and painted an endless amount of times but none are as grand as Michelangelo's Pieta. Nowadays the Virgin Mary Pieta by Michelangelo is located in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, Italy. This Pieta statue shows Mary accepting the fate of her son's death and her grief is expressed through the delicacy of her extended hand. Jesus Christ even in death is a paradox for it is as though he were not dead at all but only sleeping in the arms the gentle Virgin Mary mother. In this particular Mary statue Pieta the Virgin Mother seems to be younger than her son. The gentle features of Mary's face are filled with spiritual and physical beauty spoken in the perpetual purity of the lanquage of religious art. When Michelangelo depicted Christ and the Virgin Mary in a statue he said that "there was no need to conceal the human behind the divine."