Pietà 1493

Carlo Crivelli painted this Pietà, we believe, in the second half of the fifteenth century. It is an oil on panel. The Pietà invites us to meditate on the dead Christ. It depicts the Virgin Mary mourning over the body of her son, attended by other holy figures. This representation of death and mourning was very common in the religious culture of the time. Crivelli was working in the Italian region of the Marche. It was a place of fervent faith, but also a place of political instability. How might Crivelli’s image reflect a need to find hope through faith? The meticulous detail and emotional intensity, along with the gold background, are all hallmarks of the artist’s distinctive style. How might such a style challenge the naturalism of the Renaissance that was emerging in Florence at this time? Art historians consult a variety of documents to try to reconstruct the patronage, function, and meanings of works of art like this.