Carving

Michelangelo's Pieta demonstrates the medium called carving. He starts with a slab of stone, and carves a sculpture into it. This way, he is breaking away all of the excess stone that is not needed in order to create the sculpture. The bottom of Pieta shows the size of the original slab of stone. The reason that Michelangelo carves statues is to see what secret the rock holds. He believed that each stone decided what would come out of it.