Pieta Del Duomo

["Clive Murray-White" <clivemw@zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz>]

Dear Norman,

Everything you see is there but there is more, I was dreading trying to put
it into more words as soon as I wrote back to Elle.

By more I mean you have to look very closely at the textures and you will
soon notice that even the depiction of Christ is not treated in anything
like a uniform way.

The best area to study is how Michelangelo dealt with the transition between
Nicodemus (a self portrait) and Christ, it is almost as if he was using a
pencil instead of a chisel, one of the best examples is, as we look at in
photos, the top of Christ's left shoulder with Nicodemus' forearm
immediately behind it. M has simply drawn in an area of straight lines with
his toothed chisel.

What you have to try to imagine is what would have happened in the sculpture
if he didn't do that, my view is that much of the strength in the arm would
have dissipated, the more you look at this general area where Nicodemus'
robe meets Christ you'll begin to see the most thoroughly comprehensive
range of decisions. All used to subtlety differentiate between the 2
figures.

The best thing about this sculpture is that it is widely thought that M did
not do Mary Magdalene, if he did it was on a very bad day because its very
clumsy, what you feel you are looking at here is someone pretending to a bit
of a Michelangelo, one of the very interesting things is that it sort of
disappears into a bit of blur and allows the 3 other figures to strut their
stuff. You do have to remember that M chose to depict himself as Nicodemus
strong and caring, set against a dead Christ. The more I look at M's
"Pietas" the more I feel that what really interested him was the depiction
of a figure that could not support itself, a very very difficult matter in
stone.

Hope some of this helps.

regards Clive
Sculptor Clive Murray-White
Cowwarr Art Space
Cowwarr Gippsland Vic. Aus.
Ph: 03 51489321 Fax 0351489498
E-mail: clivemw@---------------
Web: www.cowwarr.com