Pietà (Annibale Carracci)

The dating of this painting is owed to records of its commission by Odoardo Farnese.^[2] It is unknown, however, what its original destination was or the date of its execution.^[3]

For its location, the format of the painting indicates that it might have been intended for the private devotion of its commissioner. Therefore, it would have been kept at the chapel of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome or another Farnese mansion. There is a 16th-century traveler's account that refers to an admirable Pietà by Carracci, seen in the Palazzo Farnese of Caprarola. It's unknown, however, whether that refers to the Pietà now in Naples or another work.^[3] For stylistic reasons, the Naples Pietà is dated to between 1598 and 1600.^[2]

Like almost all the works in the Farnese Collection, Carracci's Pietà left from Rome to Parma and was then brought to its new location in Naples, where it is today.

The numberless copies and derivations of this painting established it as a canonical representation of the Pietà in the Baroque era.

The Pietà of Carracci undoubtedly references Michelangelo's celebrated Pietà statue. Three preliminary studies of Carracci's Pietà reflect the observations of Carracci on Michelangelo's statue and the way in which he recreated it. In the first drawings, the body of Christ is positioned more similarly to the Michelangelo statue, with the difference that the body is not placed in the lap of Marie but on the tomb. The Virgin Marie is instead kneeling beside Jesus.

In the last version, the composition changed; it looks more like the final painting: the body of Christ is placed so his shoulders and legs are in Marie's lap, which creates an intimate link between them in a way reminiscent of Michelangelo's Pietà.^[2] Marie is, however, seated on the earth (and not on a throne, as in the Vatican statue), and Jesus' legs are on the ground and stretched over a shroud. Those elements are shared with the Lamentation of Correggio. Carracci had studied that work as a young man. He had even revisited that the work only a little before the Farnese commission, which resulted in an engraving Pietà di Caprarola.

The final result is an original combination of its two models. As Michelangelo, Carracci depicted the composed, poignant suffering of Marie, who delicately cradles her son's head in her right hand. Their faces are brought forward by the way Marie leans over the body of Christ.^[4]

Also like Michelangelo, Carracci adopted a pyramidal compositional scheme in which he inserted a little angel that holds the left hand of Jesus. A second angel, on the right side of the canvas, pricks its finger on Jesus' crown of thorns. This second angel looks out directly at the viewer and invites, with its expression of adoration, reflection on the suffering of Jesus during the Passion.^[4] The left hand of Marie, in a clever foreshortening, presents a gesture of resigned sadness. Even this detail is a homage to the statue of Michelangelo.^[4]

The whole group is placed just before the still-open tomb (perhaps an allusion to Jesus' resurrection) and on rough earth. The darkness of night enshrouds Marie, her son, and the angels, which emerge from the shadows thanks to the effects of light and color that pervade the painting. The lights and colors confer on the painting an atmosphere of intimate emotion that also recalls Correggio.^[2]

The body of Jesus has an Apollonian beauty, on which the wounds of the Passion have just been inflicted. The sculptural vigor of Jesus is associated with the great attention that Carracci gave to classical statuary and the great works of the Roman Renaissance, which are bound to the frescoes of the Galleria Farnese. For this reason, this Pietà is thought to be contemporary to those frescoes.^[2]

Sebastiano del Piombo (another specialist on the theme of the Pietà) also influenced the painting. This Venetian painter was well known to Carracci, and several of his works were even possessed by Odoardo Farnese.^[5]

The relation of three drawings to Carracci's Pietà was suggested by Rudolf Wittkower, but not placed under further study.

The great success of Carracci's The Loves of the Gods frescoes in the Farnese Gallery ignited general interest in graphical reproductions of his other works. The Pietà was among the works that attracted attention and were reproduced in engravings in various parts of Europe throughout the 16th century and into the 17th.^[6]

The reproductions of the Pieta multiplied, with varying quality. Among the verified copies, the best is that at the Galleria Doria Pamphilj, which was once thought to be an autographed copy by Carracci himself. Worse copies were sometimes made from the engravings of the work, which can be seen in the "controparte", or inverted, composition they sometimes show.