Renaissance Art History: Florence's Architectural Revolution

When we look into the eyes of David, I believe we're looking into the eyes of Renaissance man. And for me, this is really sizing up the darkness of the medieval superstitious world. Again, this is humanism. Humanism, in an Italian Renaissance sense, is not a repudiation of God. I think it's just an understanding that the best way to glorify God is not to bow down in church all day long, but it's to recognize the talents that God blesses you with, and then get out there and use them. And that's what the Renaissance Florentines were doing. A lot of Michelangelo's art is unfinished, and nobody knows exactly why. Very well could have been that his patrons would die, or get sidetracked, and money would dry up, and priorities would change, and he'd be called over here to do that, or over here to do that. Or maybe Michelangelo the genius was just satisfied. He's revealing the body that was in there, and he's not going to hang around to polish it. That takes a lot of time. Let's get on to something else. Whatever the case, you'll see a lot of unfinished works by Michelangelo. In fact, at the Accademia in Florence, there's a whole hall of them that lead right up to David. It's sort of, to me, like a temple of humanism. And at the high altar of humanism, you've got David declaring that we're moving into the modern world, the Renaissance in Florence.