Pietà
This name indicates the representation of the Madonna sitting down, holding her son's life less body on her laps; vertical lines for the mother and horizontal ones for the son. This solution is a result of the so-called Vesperbilder (vespers images) ligneous groups and it is linked to the Holy Friday liturgy. Michelangelo lessened the contrast between vertical and horizontal by representing Christ on an oblique line and thus tending him towards left. In this way the whole sculpture gets a pyramidal shape, not very deep when compared to the height and width, giving it a frontal importance.