The Eye of the Artist (Vasari)

Michelangelo's unfinished Pieta
Picture taken by Cava H.

Michelangelo was commissioned by a French cardinal in Rome to create a marble Pieta to be placed in Saint Peter's in the Chapel of the Madonna della Febbre. Vasari stated that no sculptor “could ever reach this level of design and grace, nor could he, even with hard work, ever finish, polish, and cut the marble as skillfully as Michelangelo did here, for in this statue all the worth and power of sculpture is revealed.” Michelangelo carved Mary cradling the dead body of Christ in her lap with a pyramid of drapery. The size of the figures are not proportional for the sake of the composition of the sculpture. According to Vasari, “Michelangelo departed in a significant way from the measures, orders, and rules men usually employ, following Vitruvius and the ancients, because he did not wish to repeat them.” Michelangelo believed that pleasing proportions could be identified with the artist's judgment. Vasari stated that Michelangelo declared “that it was necessary to have a good eye for measurement rather than a steady hand, because the hands work while the eyes make judgments....” Such beliefs marked the beginning of the ideas of artist as genius and conceptual art. Fifty years after carving the Roman Pieta, Michelangelo began carving another Pieta intended for his own tomb. This Pieta was left unfinished.