Roman Pietà

The idea of doing a big sculpture of the "Pietà" came to Meštrović at the very end of his captivity in the Ustasha prison in 1941 - 1942, where he also drew the first sketches. A crucial influence on the final appearance was exerted by Michelangelo's marble "Pietà" of about 1550. Meštrović transferred the Divine drama present in the scene of the Pietà into a human drama that had been deeply experienced in his own experience of incarceration. He was to write of the universality and his own vision of the work as follows: "Indeed, those who are not Christians could see in this sculpture what is universally human: the dead Son, symbol of of the giving up of life for brother humans, and the grieving mother with the son, the sister sorrowing for her brother, the sorrowful friend for their friend..." He made Joseph of Arimathea an alter ego of himself, the features of his son Tvrtko were given to Jesus and of his daughter Marija to Mary Magdalene.