Focus on The Entombment of Christ (Caravaggio) and explore the Composition.
This counter-reformation painting – with a diagonal cascade of mourners and cadaver-bearers descending to the limp, dead Christ and the bare stone – is not a moment of transfiguration, but of mourning. As the viewer's eye descends from the gloom there is, too, a descent from the hysteria of Mary of Clopas through subdued emotion to death as the final emotional silencing. Unlike the gory post-crucifixion Jesus in morbid Spanish displays, Italian Christs die generally bloodlessly, and slump in a geometrically challenging display. As if emphasizing the dead Christ's inability to feel pain, a hand enters the wound at his side.  His body is one of a muscled, veined, thick-limbed laborer rather than the usual, bony-thin depiction.
Two men carry the body. John the Evangelist, identified only by his youthful appearance and red cloak supports the dead Christ on his right knee and with his right arm, inadvertently opening the wound. Nicodemus (with the face of Michelangelo) grasps the knees in his arms, with his feet planted at the edge of the slab. Caravaggio balances the stable, dignified position of the body and the unstable exertions of the bearers.
While faces are important in painting generally, in Caravaggio it is important always to note where the arms are pointing. Skyward in The Conversion of Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus, towards Levi in The Calling of Saint Matthew. Here, the dead God's fallen arm and immaculate shroud touch stone; the grieving Mary of Cleophas gesticulates to Heaven. In some ways, that was the message of Christ: God come to earth, and mankind reconciled with the heavens. As usual, even with his works of highest devotion, Caravaggio never fails to ground himself. In the center is Mary Magdalene, drying her tears with a white handkerchief, face shadowed.  Tradition held that the Virgin Mary be depicted as eternally young, but here Caravaggio paints the Virgin as an old woman. The figure of the Virgin Mary is also partially obscured behind John; we see her in the robes of a nun and her arms are held out to her side, imitating the line of the stone they stand upon. Her right hand hovers above his head as if she is reaching out to touch him. Seen together, the three women constitute different, complementary expressions of suffering.The left figure imitates the costume from Caravaggio's Penitent Magdalene (Doria Pamphilj Gallery, Rome); the right figure reminds us of his Mary in Conversion of the Magdalene (Detroit Institute of Art). Andrew Graham-Dixon asserts that these figures were modelled by Fillide Melandroni, a frequent model in his works and about 22 years old at the time.
Caravaggio's composition also seems to be related to Michelangelo's Pietà as St. Peters (especially in the figure of the Madonna), and his Florentine Pietà (Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence), from which he takes the figure of Nicodemus. In the latter case, Caravaggio transports Michelangelo's self-portrait to his own painting.Although Caravaggio's Entombment of Christ is related to Michelangelo's Pieta, it is not a Pieta because even if there is the presence of the Virgin Mary in the painting there are not the right number nor types of people present.Caravaggio also sets up a comparison with Raphael by using as a source for the main group, that of Raphael's Borghese Deposition. This comparison contrasts High Renaissance idealism with Caravaggio's own naturalism.
Caravaggio's Entombment  of Christ is not a Burial because the body of Christ is not being lowered on to a tomb but instead being laid on a stone slab.
Mary Magdalene Conversion of the Magdalene Jesus Raphael counter-reformation The Conversion of Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus Christ Pietà Fillide Melandroni Virgin Mary Florentine Pietà Mary of Clopas crucifixion Heaven Andrew Graham-Dixon Italian Borghese Deposition John the Evangelist St. Peters High Renaissance Caravaggio Spanish Mary of Cleophas Nicodemus Penitent Magdalene Michelangelo Deposition left Raphael's Detroit Institute of Art Doria Pamphilj Gallery