I say Pieta, you say...MITLEID!

German. Always better in all caps and an exclamation point.

I often wake in the middle of the night, not so much with thoughts as in midthought, which has sometimes made me nervous. I wonder who's piloting this thing when the captain's away. But I'm still thinking about art comparisons, still with Mary holding Jesus, with a slightly different subject. Whenever we hear the word "pieta" we probably are thinking of Michelangelo's Pieta, which looks like this...

...and is beyond my ability to describe. He actually did another one, meaning it for his own tomb, but didn't finish it. Actually, it is said that he became frustrated with it and rushed it with a hammer, which he used on it, but was restrained by his pupils from further damage, and he then left off working on it any longer. It looks like this:

Looks more like a Deposition, but I think they do call it a Pieta. But what I really wanted to post on here was a much older and much different Pieta by an unknown German artist.

This is your gothic art. Is it any wonder that the word "Gothic" as applied to art was actually a term of abuse from Italian Renaissance types? "What's that?" "Ah! Another monstrosity from thost dreadful Goths that side of the Alps!" Well, mess on you, crazy Italian humanist! Thanks to you, Martin Luther freaked out and left the Church! Way to be the straw that broke the camel's back. I hope you're happy.

I have to work tomorrow, dang it. I guess I'd better sleep.