Throughout the history, the terms idealism and realism have evolved, starting from the Greek’s sculptures and influencing different regions. Idealism in art means conveying the ideal and artistic side of the subject, and it tends to depict “what should be” more than “what it really is”. On the other hand, realism tends to care more about the true representation of the subject without idealizing it and giving it extra features that makes it close to the viewers. In this paper, the themes realism and idealism will be addressed using the Vesperbild sculpture from the Middle Rhine Region in Germany as an example, discussing the “Pietà”, its cultural context, and comparing it to another pietà from the same region.
The Vesperbild (also called the Roettgen Pietà) is a wooden sculpture that was made around 1330 C.E. by an unknown artist during the fourteenth century in the Middle Rhine Region in Germany. This piece of art was made in the Gothic period or Middle Ages and reflects the kind of mysticism that emerged at that time. The wooden sculpture depicts Mary, the mother of God, in an emotional way having a dead body on her lap who is Jesus the Christ. The sculpture was seen as devastating because unlike other images of the Christ, here his death is violently portrayed with wounds on his hands and feet resembling the crucifixion with three dimensional blood dripping and gives a sense of explosion all over his dead body. Moving to his head, the sharp crown with thorns and dagger