Word: pieta
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VANDALISM can be a form of murder. There are 13th century panels in Siena whose painted demons have been scratched to obliteration by pious fingernails; the Mona Lisa has been stoned. Last week, in one of the most vicious examples of vandalism to date, Michelangelo's Vatican Pieta was almost ritually assaulted by a 33-year-old Hungarian-born Australian geologist who cried: "I am Jesus Christ...
Nobody will ever know what went through the scrambled circuits of Laszlo Toth's brain when he climbed over the guardrail of the chapel of the Pieta in St. Peter's Basilica and started battering with his hammer at the Madonna's resigned stone arm, the folded veil, the nose, the translucent shell of her left eyelid. But one may guess: Toth had lost all power to distinguish between an image and the reality it denotes...
...sense, his motives no longer matter. The damage is done, and, according to the Vatican's optimistic experts, it can be repaired. No tourist looking at the Pieta in the future-through a prophylactic wall of reinforced glass -will be able to see the traces of restoration. But another supreme product of man's spirit will have become more distant, less intelligible...
Other spoils of Berenson's Italian conquests include Raphael's Pieta and a portrait of a Roman Count, a Guardi scene of Venice, Botticelli's Madonna and Child, Giotto's Jesus, Fra Angelico's Assumption, etc. Few museums equal the Gardner's extensive collection of Italian masters. But Berenson was not to stop at conquering Italian walls; sensing Mrs. Jack's interest in a bargain, he induced her to buy Durer, Holbein, Rubens, and Rembrandt...
...most people today automobiles, jetplanes and the Golden Gate Bridge spontaneously evoke "It's beautiful!" Responses to Michelangelo's Pieta or Degas monotypes are more self-conscious...