Rondanini Pietà

Here the Master eliminated even the residual counterpoint of the Mother’s head turned upwards, as can be seen from the remaining fragment of the roughed-out face of the first version: now the two heads overlap on the same line, in a unified tension. Like every compositional complication, every principle of physical beauty seems abandoned for the expression of a feeling, and the departure from classicism reaches its culmination in this newly rediscovered classicism of harmony between pure rhythm and integral human truth.