The Pietà by Michelangelo was completed in 1500 when the artist was 25. Originally commissioned by a French cardinal, the Pietà was the artist's first major work and made his name as a sculptor.The 68-1/2-inch-high sculpture is housed in St. Peters in Rome. Illustrating one of the seven sorrows of the Virgin, a serene and youthful Mary is seated and the body of her son, Jesus, is cradled in her arms. It can be seen at St. Peter's in Rome.
A Baroque sculpture, Gian Lorenzo Bernini's statue of "David" is life-sized, capturing the Biblical hero as he is about to cast the lethal stone from his sling. Although Goliath is not physically present, positioning of the body of "David" and his facial composition makes it evident to the onlooker that his eye is on the giant. Bernini, one of the great Baroque sculptors, intended that the public walk around his sculpture and observe a boy about to change history. It is housed in the Galleria Borghese in Rome.
Located at the Rodin Museum in Paris, this is more than a life-sized carving of a couple kissing. The finely smoothed marble figures sit on a base of rough-hewn marble as if sitting on a settee. Rodin was a modeler, not a carver, so most of his works are cast in bronze. Rodin, considered the first sculptor of genius since Bernini, is considered to have impacted three-dimensional art as Monet and Manet impacted painting during the Impressionist period. "The Kiss," completed in 1898, depicts ill-fated, illicit lovers modeled after Dante's characters, Paolo and Francesco.
Located in the Oskar Reinhart Collection in Winterthur, Switzerland, the "Seated Woman" by Aristide Maillol was completed in 1901. It is a simple sculpture influenced by early Greek artisans. Maillol began as a symbolist painter and began creating statues later in life. The "Seated Woman" sits unclothed on the ground with her left knee raised where she rests her left elbow; her left hand rests against her head. Her right hand and arm support her body. She is not pensive as is Rodin's "Thinker"; rather, she is in a reflective state, detached and free from the stresses of life.