Michelangelo's David: Great Art Explained

The captivating tale of Michelangelo's David is a far cry from the narrative of a teenage boykin who vanquished a foe. In one of his profound poems, Michelangelo penned, Sandi sel bruto, I know I am ugly. Born with a nose broken and seemingly crushed into his face, he lamented that his appearance made him resemble a beggar. Tormented by his visage and estranged from his own body, he devoted his life in pursuit of sublime perfection, a pursuit that he believed was divinely ordained. Despite his own physical flaws, he vowed that his David would serve as the benchmark for male beauty. Michelangelo believed that he was merely a tool of God, releasing rather than creating the sculpture from marble. His unfinished works offer valuable insights into his techniques. Most sculptors would create a clay model and then mark up their block of marble to know where to chip, but Michelangelo worked mostly freehand, starting from the front and working back. To sculpt in marble requires the strength of an athlete and the dexterity of a surgeon. Any misstep could shatter years of labor. Michelangelo would commence by what is called roughing out, removing the bulk of the weight with a pointed chisel and a large mallet, shaping the sculpture in general. Then, he'd use a tooth chisel and a smaller hammer for more detailed work in modeling the form. As he needed more details, he'd use finer and finer tooth chisels. He would use a drill to reach into the deeper crevices. Then, he would refine using various smaller tools, followed by smoothing the surface with a rasp, a sort of file. Finally, he would polish the statue using abrasive pumice stones and then leather until it was smooth and glossy. Examining his unfinished work, one can clearly see the sculpture emerging from the stone. The marks seen here were made by Michelangelo's own hands. The outer part shows where Michelangelo began to cut away the stone with a large pick and a mallet. In this area, one can clearly see he has used a tooth chisel. On the chest, one sees even more detail in the marks of finer tools. Michelangelo was 26 when he was commissioned to sculpt a colossal statue of the biblical hero David. Placed on the roof of the cathedral in Florence, 80 meters above street level, he had already carved the achingly beautiful Pieta in Rome and was recognized as a master. He was asked to use an old block of marble, already owned by the cathedral, that had been sitting around for 50 years. Two other sculptors had attempted to use it, but the marble was flawed and considered too narrow to produce a successful figure. One sculptor had even carved a large hole out between what were to have been the legs of his figure. It was these flaws that Michelangelo saw as opportunities. Because of the shape of the marble, Michelangelo had to be precise. There was no room for maneuver. David had to look to the side as there wasn't enough marble to have him facing forward. David had to be in the contrapposto position, so that his legs would fit around the large hole already in the marble, and he would have to be slender because of the depth of the marble. The story of David and Goliath is the biblical story of the Philistine giant, defeated by the teenage Israelite, armed only with his sling. The finale of the story is David cutting off his head and holding it up to the cheering crowd. Traditionally, David had been portrayed at the point of victory, triumphant over the dead Goliath. The Laurentine artist, like Donatello and Verrocchio, depicted their own version of David standing over Goliath's severed head. However, Michelangelo's take on it would be revolutionary. By removing the conventional attributes of the biblical hero, stripping him down both literally and figuratively, Michelangelo also removes a simplistic reading of it as just an illustration of the story and gives it a wider metaphorical meaning. For the first time in art, David is depicted before the battle, rather than the moment of victory. This changes everything. First and foremost, Michelangelo's David depicts rationality. David isn't about to fight Goliath with brute strength, but with skill and reason. David represents the humanist ideal of a man who can become a hero by his intelligence and willpower alone. These are the virtues of the thinking man, considered perfection during the Renaissance. Michelangelo catches him at the peak of his concentration as he contemplates the challenge ahead of him. David is no longer the traditional self-assured boy. Now, he is shown as an apprehensive man. David's neck is tense, his thigh muscles are flexed, his nostrils are flared, and his brow is furrowed with fear. He is just about to glide easily and naturally into action. He is tense, but contemplates the challenge ahead of him with a calculated gaze. The rock is hidden inside his right palm. The slingshot rests on his shoulder and hangs down his back, almost invisible, emphasizing that David's victory was intellectual. His chest appears to pulse with anxiety. Like all of Michelangelo's sculptures, the viewer sees David at a specific and pivotal point. It is not meant to be the whole story. David is in motion. The position he is in is known as contrapostal or counter-pose. He was invented by the ancient Greeks and is a very natural and human way to stand. The red line shows where his muscles are tensed and the yellow ones where his muscles are relaxed. Most of the weight is on one leg with the other leg forward, causing the figure's hips and shoulders to rest at opposing angles, giving a slight S-curve to the entire torso and therefore giving the statue a more dynamic look. The story of David and Goliath would come to represent the city of Florence itself. During the reigning, since Italy was a collection of city-states, each with its own ruler, the newly independent Republic of Florence saw itself as the David of Italy, holding out with unexpected strength against the meditators and the powerful and all-consuming influence of the Pope in Rome. This point was emphasized when David was placed in a rather than its intended religious one. Commissioned as a statue of the biblical story in Michelangelo's hands, it becomes something else entirely. The proportions of David are not typical of Michelangelo's work. The figure has an unusually large head and hands, but Michelangelo, who had dissected many cadavers, understood the human body better than any physician. As per the commission, the statue was designed to be seen from 80 meters below. In 2010, a fiberglass replica was temporarily placed in the spot originally planned for David, and we can clearly see that the proportions worked perfectly when seen from below. In the Renaissance, it was unusual for a biblical story to feature a nude, but the Renaissance was a decisive time for the nude in Western art. A renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman art brought the human body to the forefront of artistic innovation during the Renaissance. Achievement in representing the body became the standard for measuring artistic genius. It is far harder to depict a nude figure than a clothed one. It is a myth, though, that Renaissance Europeans were comfortable with nude bodies in art, particularly when In fact, the city fathers had a garland of 28 gilded copper leaves made to protect David's modesty, and in later years he wore a fig leaf, as in this photo from the 1860s shows. Why is the Jewish hero David not circumcised? Again, we can trace this back to the inspiration for the Renaissance, the ancient Greeks and Romans. They regarded circumcision as barbaric, and there are no depictions of circumcision in ancient statuary. Also, the Catholic Church denounced circumcision in the Middle Ages. The Jewish figure of David has been placed into the Christian context of Florence, a hallmark of the High Renaissance. It has been remarked that David's penis is rather small. This was considered an indication of modesty and respectability, and shows that the biblical figure is in control of his own urges. We can contrast that with contemporary images of satires and other figures which represented evil sexuality. David has a slight squint. It is rarely remarked on, but his eyes pointed slightly different directions. This is a typical Michelangelo trick to pull us into the eyes of David. The pupils are carved out hollow to capture the changing sunlight, adding to the intensity of gaze. Michelangelo calculated every angle and always considered the position of the viewer. The details are extraordinary. My own favorite is the jugular vein, which is swollen. This only occurs when people get excited or nervous. Michelangelo understood this over a century before scientists would describe the circulatory system. The veins in the raised left hand are delicate, while the veins in the hanging right hand are pulsing and more well-defined. The way our blood circulates, this is exactly what would happen to our own hands in the same position. Every detail points to Michelangelo's passion for human anatomy. Michelangelo, who never wasted a minute of his life, worked morning, noon, and night on David, alone and in total secrecy. At night he would attach candles to his hat. He rarely ate, and when he did sleep, he slept in his clothes, which he seldom, if ever, changed. In 1504 he finally presented his giant to the Cathedral Committee. They were astonished at Michelangelo's skills and agreed it was far too perfect to be placed at such a height. They decided to find a better location and eventually decided it should be placed in the political heart of Florence, in Piazza della Signoria, in front of the Town Hall, where its copy still is today. One member of the committee tried to persuade them to place David in a less prominent place, his name, Leonardo da Vinci. David is truly a colossus. At nearly six meters tall and weighing six tons, it took four days and forty men to move the statue half a mile from Michelangelo's workshop. In a gesture of defiance, David was placed facing south towards Rome. Michelangelo then added the finishing touches on site. Originally, the sling and tree stumps of Bort were gilded with gold, as seen in these reconstructions. David received a rapturous reception from the Florentines, and right from the start, it was held as a masterpiece and The Italian 16th-century historian, Giorgi Versari, wrote, after seeing this, no one need wish to look at any other sculpture or the work of any other artist. In 1873, David was moved to the Accademia gallery to protect it from environmental damage, and in 1910, a full-size copy was placed in the square. His fig leaf was eventually removed, and David could be seen as Michelangelo intended. Statues have power beyond their initial reading. One man's hero is another man's symbol of oppression. Michelangelo would go on to create many masterpieces, but his miraculous transformation of a shepherd boy into the physical embodiment of Florence would prove to be a defining moment in his artistic career. He was an alchemist, who turned marble into flesh and bone, and brought to psychological insight and physical realism to sculpture never seen before. He died in Rome in February of 1564, still working at the age of 88 years old, having outlived both his art rivals, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael. He was brought back to Florence to be buried in Santa Cretacea Church, just as stones throw away from his divine David.