Michelangelo's Pietà

Seeing a finished work by someone like Michelangelo is an experience in itself, but viewing an unfinished work was something different entirely. Unlike a finished work, it lets you peer, just the smallest bit, into the artist’s thought process.

With Michelangelo’s Pietà you have the opportunity to see a work in progress and witness just where it was his creative mind was taking him. As it is, we can see at least two major changes he was in the process of making after the main form has already taken shape. The first is in Mary's face. Though the fineness of her features had yet to be completed, you can see where he had first placed her face (above and to the right of where her face is now - it's very slight), but then abandoned it in order to position her head differently. So as it stands, she has two faces.

Similarly, he changed the entire angle of Christ’s body. What was originally Mary’s right shoulder was transformed into Christ’s head resting upon her shoulder. By changing this position, it rendered Christ's original arm on that side obsolete. It no longer fit into the context of the sculpture, yet it is still dangling there – unattached. Instead he formed a new one from the folds of Mary's robe.

The whole thing was beautiful in a completely new and different way. It felt like an honor to be allowed to witness a portion of his creative process. And made me truly sad that it would never be finished, forever incomplete. As Christ's work would have been, had he not risen on the third day.