He stands relaxed yet ready for action, eyes fixed steadily on his opponent, confident of the outcome of the contest. He is a beautiful young man, unfazed by his nudity. His muscles are hardened from an active
life protecting his flock from lions and bears.
David stands
seventeen feet tall and is made of white marble, not flesh and blood, yet you
can see every vein, every muscle in his elegant body. What is he thinking as he prepares to battle the giant
Goliath? We know how the fight
will end . . . and it appears David
does also.
From 1501 to 1504 Michelangelo chipped away at a giant piece of
second-hand piece of marble, removing everything that wasn’t David. Sounds simple.
We got a sense of the birth of a sculpture by looking at some of
Michelangelo’s unfinished pieces destined for Pope Julius’s memorial. I could actually see the figure
emerging from the solid marble, an arm here, a thigh there, and embryonic face
up there.
I stared at David from
every angle for nearly an hour, from the veins in his arm to the rock in his
hand, his curls. Yes, even his
genitals. And I will return to the
Accademia for more. David is the most outstanding creation I
have ever seen.
It is interesting to compare Michelangelo's David to the Donatello bronze at the Bargello National Museum. The bronze stands with a foot on the head of Goliath, the deed already done, but his thin, almost effeminate body makes me wonder how such a frail child could have slain Goliath.
Michelangelo wasn't the only artist in 16th Century Florence, far from it, nor the only innovator. The frescoes of Masaccio depicting the life of Saint Peter in the Brancelli Chapel somehow survived a devastating fire. Masaccio and his co-artist, Masolino, used perspective to give the scenes a sense of dimension and they captured human emotion on the faces of the characters. Interestingly, in one of the panels was completed by Filippino Lippe, he included a cameo of the three artists.
