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It is a variant of the Man of Sorrows (Imago Pietatis) type of andachtsbilder, but showing a Christ who is clearly dead (in Man of Sorrows images he tends to have his eyes open). Typically the half-length body of the dead Christ sits on a ledge, held up by smaller angels at each side. Christ is naked down to a loin-cloth and his wounds are visible.
The dead body of Christ, seeming unnaturally light, is supported by the Virgin Mary at left and Saint John the Evangelist at right. The hand of Christ is placed in the foreground on a marble slab, on which is Bellini's signature and a phrase taken from the Elegies of Propertius : HAEC FERE QVVM GEMITVS TVRGENTIA LVMINA PROMANT / BELLINI POTERAT ...
Pietà or Lamentation over the Dead Christ is a fragment of a lunette fresco of c. 1475–1500 by the Italian Renaissance painter and architect Bramantino, originally over the door of the church of San Sepolcro in Milan and now in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in the same city.
The Pietà, where the dead Christ is supported by his grieving mother, is a common theme of late-medieval religious art, but this is one of the most striking depictions, "perhaps the greatest masterpiece produced in France in the 15th century" (Edward Lucie-Smith). [1]
The signature echoes one used by the ancient Greek artists Apelles and Polykleitos. It was the only work he ever signed. Vasari also reports the anecdote that Michelangelo later regretted his outburst of pride and swore never to sign another work of his hands. [12] [13] Fifty years later, Vasari declared the following regarding the Pietà:
Above each figure is his or her name in gold Greek letters, further proof of the painting's origins in Venice. Their extreme expressions of grief are unusual in Bellini's oeuvre and may have been influenced by Donatello 's reliefs for the high altar of the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua .
The word kalos (καλός), meaning 'handsome' or 'beautiful', was often accompanied by the name of a certain man, or sometimes simply by the word pais (παῖς), meaning the 'boy' or 'youth', without naming a particular person. The female version was kalē (καλή).
The theme of the Pietà, so dear to the sculptor Michelangelo, is addressed in a highly emotional composition, as in the Crucifixion for Colonna. The dead Jesus is cradled between the grieving Mary's legs, who raises her arms to heaven as two angels also raise Christ's arms at right angles.