Encyclopedia
Michelangelo's
David, sculpted from 1500 to 1504, is a masterpiece of
Renaissance sculpture and one of Michelangelo's two greatest works of sculpture, along with the
Pietà. However, it is the
David alone that almost certainly holds the title of the most recognizable statue in the history of art. It has become regarded as a symbol both of strength and youthful human beauty. The 5.17 meter
marble statue portrays the
Biblical King David at the moment that he decides to do battle with
Goliath. It came to symbolise the
Florentine Republic, an independent city state threatened on all sides by more powerful rival states. This interpretation was also encouraged by the original setting of the sculpture outside the
Palazzo della Signoria, the seat of civic government in
Florence. The completed sculpture was unveiled on 8 September 1504.
History
The history of Michelangelo's David precedes his work on it from 1501-1504, as far back as 1464. At that time the Overseers of the Office of Works of the Duomo , comprised mostly of members of the influential woolen cloth guild, the
Arte della Lana, had plans to commission a series of twelve large Old Testament sculptures for the buttresses of the
cathedral of
Santa Maria del Fiore. Until then only two had been created independently by
Donatello and his assistant, Agostino di Duccio. Eager to continue their project, in 1464 they again contracted Agostino to create a sculpture of David. He only got as far as beginning to shape the legs, feet and chest of the figure, roughing out some drapery and probably gouging a hole between the legs. His association with the project, for reasons unknown, ceased with the death of his master Donatello in 1466, and Antonio Rossellino was commissioned to take up where Agostino had left off.
Rossellino's contract was terminated soon thereafter, and the block of marble originally from a quarry in
Carrara, a town in the Apuan Alps in northern Italy, remained neglected for twenty-five years, all the while exposed to the elements in the yard of the cathedral workshop. This was of great concern to the Operai authorities, as such a large piece of marble was both costly, and represented a large amount of labor and difficulty in its transportation to Florence. In 1500, an inventory of the cathedral workshops described the piece as, "a certain figure of marble called David, badly blocked out and supine." A year later, documents showed that the Operai were determined to find an artist who could take this large piece of marble and turn it into a finished work of art. They ordered the block of stone, which they called
The Giant, "raised on its feet" so that a master experienced in this kind of work might examine it and express an opinion. Though
Leonardo da Vinci and others were consulted, it was young Michelangelo, only twenty-six years old, who convinced the Operai that he deserved the commission. On August 16, 1501, Michelangelo was given the official contract to undertake this challenging new task. He began carving the statue early in the morning on Monday, September 13, a month after he was awarded the contract. He would work on the massive biblical hero for a little more than three years.
Michelangelo's
David differs from previous representations of the subject in that David is depicted before his battle with Goliath and not after the giant's defeat . Instead of being shown victorious over a foe much larger than he, David looks tense and ready for combat. His veins bulge out of his lowered right hand and the twist of his body effectively conveys to the viewer the feeling that he is in motion. The statue is meant to show David after he has made the decision to fight Goliath but before the battle has actually taken place. It is a representation of the moment between conscious choice and conscious action.
On January 25, 1504, when the sculpture was nearing completion, a committee of Florentine artists including Leonardo da Vinci and
Sandro Botticelli met to decide on an appropriate site for the
David. The majority, led by
Giuliano da Sangallo and supported by Leonardo and
Piero di Cosimo, among others, believed that due to the imperfections in the marble the sculpture should be placed under the roof of the
Loggia dei Lanzi on
Piazza della Signoria. Only a minority view, supported by Botticelli, believed that the sculpture should be situated on or near the cathedral. Eventually the
David was placed in front of the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio, also on Piazza della Signoria, replacing Donatello's bronze sculpture of Judith and Holofernes, which embodied a comparable theme of heroic resistance.
To protect it from damage, the sculpture was moved in 1873 to the
Accademia Gallery in Florence, where it attracts many visitors. A replica was placed in the Piazza della Signoria in 1910.
In 1991 a
vandal attacked the statue with a hammer, damaging the toes of the left foot before being restrained. The samples obtained from that incident allowed scientists to determine that the
marble used by Michelangelo was obtained from the Fantiscritti quarries in Miseglia, the central of three small valleys in
Carrara. The block was quarried 40 years prior to carving of David. In that time period, two other sculptors, Agostino di Duccio and Antonio Rossellino, attempted to carve from it, but both abandoned their projects due to lack of experience and skill and a fault that lay through the block of marble. The marble in question contains many microscopic holes that cause it to deteriorate faster than other marbles. It is believed that because the quality of the marble is rather mediocre, Michelangelo obtained the block for free. Because of the marble's degradation, a controversy occurred in 2003, when the statue underwent its first major cleaning since 1843. Some experts opposed the use of water to clean the statue, fearing further deterioration.
Style and detail
Michelangelo's
David is based on the artistic discipline of
disegno, which is built on knowledge of the male human form. Under this discipline, sculpture is considered to be the finest form of art because it mimics divine creation. Because Michelangelo adhered to the concepts of
disegno, he worked under the premise that the image of
David was already in the block of stone he was working on — in much the same way as the
human soul is thought by some to be found within the physical body. It is also an example of the
contrapposto style of posing the human figure.
The proportions are not quite true to the human form; the head and upper body are somewhat larger than the proportions of the lower body. While some have suggested that this is of the
mannerist style, the most commonly accepted explanation is that the statue was originally intended to be placed on a church
façade or high
pedestal, and that the proportions would appear correct when the statue was viewed from some distance below.
There was controversy over the statue's supposed
Biblical reference, since the statue seemed to portray an
uncircumcised male, whereas the historical King David was undoubtedly circumcised. Because of this, some art historians believed that "David" was actually the name of the
model who posed for the statue, rather than King David himself, and that Michelangelo claimed the Biblical reference to make it acceptable to the Christian world. It was also suggested that this was a conscious decision in Michelangelo's endeavor to emulate the
ancient Greek aesthetic ideals, which regarded the circumcised
penis as mutilated.
Replicas
A
replica of the statue was offered as a gift by the municipality of Florence to the municipality of
Jerusalem to mark the 3,000th anniversary of David's conquest of the city. The proposed gift evoked a storm in Jerusalem, where religious factions urged the gift be declined, because the naked figure was considered
pornographic. Finally, a compromise was reached and another, fully-clad replica of a different statue was donated instead.
There are many full-size replicas of the statue around the world, from a
plaster cast copy in
London's
Victoria and Albert Museum, to the centrepiece of a
shopping mall in
Surfers Paradise,
Australia. There is also a replica in
Sioux Falls,
South Dakota. One resident of
Los Angeles, California, has decorated his house and grounds with twenty-three reduced scale replicas of the statue. There is also a copy gracing the "Appian Way Shops" at
Caesars Palace in
Las Vegas. A
bronze casting from the original marble statue also stands in Delaware Park in
Buffalo, New York. Another bronze casting is the centerpiece in the courtyard of the in
Sarasota, Florida. The Philadelphia Museum of Art also has a replica, albeit quite a rough one.
Sources
- Pope-Hennessy, John . Italian High Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture. London: Phaidon
- Kleiner, Fred S., and Christin J. Mamiya. Gardner's Art Through the Ages. 11th ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt College, 2001.
- Other Sources Unknown.
There is also an exact replica of David at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Southern California.
External links
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