Pietà

Konrad Witz's Pieta, painted around 1440 for The Frick Collection, demonstrates the Swiss-German painter's remarkable naturalism that was among the most advanced in Northern European art. Witz's powerful, sculptural figures and his attention to light and space place him among the most innovative painters north of the Alps. This work belongs to the Early Renaissance, the transformative period in European art when painters first applied mathematical perspective, naturalistic figure modeling, and archaeological interest in antiquity to the inherited traditions of medieval devotional painting. The tension between Gothic grace and Renaissance structure gives art of this period a distinctive energy.

The Pieta displays Witz's characteristic sculptural figure modeling and his innovative approach to light, with the heavy, volumetric forms of the mourning figures rendered with a physical solidity remarkable for its period.