The Pieta

The Pietà is van Gogh's Imitatio Christi in oil. Although van Gogh reproduced the painting from a lithograph of Delacroix's Pietà, the style of painting, in which the canvas is built up with layers of paint so that the figures appear molded out of clay, as well as the dramatic use of color and intimate rendering of the portrait figures make this van Gogh's own distinctive work. While working on his Pietà, van Gogh wrote to his brother, Theo, "I am not indifferent, and even when suffering, sometimes religious thoughts bring me great consolation. So this last time during my illness an unfortunate accident happened to me — that lithograph of Delacroix's Pietà, along with some other sheets, fell into some oil and paint and was ruined. I was very distressed — then in the meantime I have been busy painting it.... I hope it has feeling."

Perhaps the most striking feature of the van Gogh Pietà is its symbolic use of color. The picture plane is divided into areas of intense sapphire blue juxtaposed with citron yellow. Rather than depicting Christ with a halo, van Gogh used an intense yellow light to convey the mystical quality of the dying Jesus. As he explained to Theo, "I want to paint men and women with something of the eternal which the halo used to symbolize, and which we seek to convey by the actual radiance and vibration of our coloring." Mary's robes cascade in folds of various shades of blue, from light indigo to royal, so dark it appears almost black, forming a marked contrast with the luminous glow of light that strikes her right arm and face. This deep blue, characteristic of the visionary sky of Starry Night, was van Gogh's symbol of infinity. In a previous painting, The Portrait of Eugène Boch, he described his symbolic use of blue in the portrait figure's background: "Instead of painting the ordinary wall of the mean room, I paint infinity, a plain background of the richest, intensest blue I can contrive."

Van Gogh's Pietà is a deeply personal portrait of Christ's suffering and Mary's devotion. The Christ figure is emaciated, his eyes closed, his head bowed. He appears to be dead, but Mary has stayed by his side, her face sympathetic, but her distant gaze wistful, even hopeful. Her arms present the figure expectantly rather than enfolding him in grief. Both Christ and Mary are bathed in a radiant blaze of golden light streaming from the sun rising behind the jagged cliffs. The morning light portends Christ's resurrection and ultimate triumph as well as the regeneration van Gogh hoped to find for himself through the healing of the asylum at St. Rémy.


At Eternity's Gate: The Spiritual Vision of Vincent Van Gogh,
Kathleen Erickson

Other Ref: The Symbolic Language of Vincent Van Gogh, Heinz Graetz



To look @ the painting, goto Van Gogh Museum