Studio Note: 2

02.20.25

What do you think?

Let me share what I think. Let me share something from deep within my heart. I want to invite you to a different understanding of art than perhaps you have had until now. If you are willing, follow me on a short mental journey, an exploration of sorts.

You see a striking sculpture pictured above, a unique Pieta: the Rottgen Pieta, carved of wood during the 14th century in Germany. Perhaps it is the most gruesome one you have seen? How do you feel when you see it?

When I initially shared this piece of art on Instagram months ago, more than 80% of you strongly disliked it. That’s totally valid. I can understand why you’d hate it.

At risk of startling you, I share something viscerally personal: I once held my own son, my own firstborn, as he died.

He was five days old, perfectly formed, beautiful, innocent. And I held him as he was dying. I am sure many of you have experiences of such ugliness— ugliness that should never be, ugliness that you cannot even begin to fathom or justify— the ugliness of innocence suffering pain, the ugliness of innocence being ripped from you. In this Pieta, Mary’s face is a true mirror of something I myself felt as I watched my son die. My pain of course is no match for hers, but I do know a faint shadow of it. Many of you know it too, if you have lost someone you love.

Why try to diminish that? Death is so ugly. Death is so cruel.

Look at Him. I love that in this depiction He is small…smaller than She is. I think this was done purposefully. She is the mother, He is the Son, the One she held as a baby, as a toddler, as a teen…always her little Boy. He lies limp and lifeless in her arms, and in contrast, she sits up rigid and straight, strong in her Acceptance. Only the tilt of her head and the angle of her brow signal to us how her heart must be breaking.

It’s striking to me how some of the ugliest things

can end up being the most beautiful. The longer I live, the more I wonder if Beauty and Pain are just two sides of the same coin. I wonder. Here is where words mostly fail me, for the time being. There is nothing more hideous than the scene depicted above. There is nothing I have hated more than holding my own dead son. Without diminishing ANY of the pain and ugliness…there is somehow also nothing in this world more beautiful. My words end there. I cannot explain; I leave you to contemplate the Mother and Son above. Now… now what feelings arise as you look?

SO MUCH in this life is ugly. Not how we want it to be. Not remotely fair.

I think it could be both easy and understandable to default to looking away from death, from sorrow, from pain. To pretend it doesn’t exist, or try to make it seem less awful than it is… But I wonder if there is something else to be seen beneath what we hate so much, if we force our eyes to look? Something else to know about the ugliness, some other standard of beauty what haven’t accounted for yet? I wonder.

As a final thought: you may or may not like the Rottgen Pieta. It may make you uncomfortable, or angry, or bothered. Fair. But your reaction has very little bearing on whether or not it is good art. The value of a piece of art does not arise from how it makes us feel. Good art is art that tells the truth. Sometimes, that is uncomfortable.

Thanks for following along.

What do you think? Do you still have strong feelings about this piece?

Come at me, I’d love to hear it! Until next week,