Of all Caravaggio's paintings, this is probably the most monumental. A strictly symmetrical group is built up from the slab of stone that juts diagonally out of the background.
The painting is from the altar of the Chiesa Nuova in Rome, which is dedicated to the Pieta. The embalming of the corpse and the entombment are actually secondary to the the Mourning of Mary which is the focal point of the lamentation.
Nothing distinguished Caravaggio's history paintings more strongly from the art of the Renaissance than his refusal to portray the human individual as sublime, beautiful and heroic.
His figures are bowed, bent, cowering, reclining or stooped. The self confident and the statuesque have been replaced by humility and subjection.
В 1830 за эту работу и другие картины автор получил звание академика.