The Entombment by Michelangelo

Christ’s body is held upright, supported by figures using long strips of cloth. Behind them, the rocky ground rises towards his tomb. Beside the closely painted bodies, empty areas interrupt the scene. Michelangelo, the Florentine artist also known for sculpture, worked on this painting around 1500–01. It was probably intended for a funerary chapel in Rome. He left it unfinished when he returned to Florence, and the missing passages have never been disguised as a completed image. The figures’ identities are not all certain. The red-haired bearer at the left may be John the Evangelist. The empty lower-right area was probably reserved for the Virgin Mary. Keeping those uncertainties in mind allows the surviving gestures to carry the scene without inventing a finished arrangement. Look at the weight of Christ’s torso and the effort implied by the cloth beneath his arms. Even before the painting was finished, Michelangelo gave the body a sculptural presence. The bare areas make that concentration on human form especially clear.