In the age of 3D printers that can print a part for your car or a working hand gun to being able to bring (via CGI) anything from inanimate objects to long dead dinosaurs to life and move (in 3D) across TV and movie screens, wonder seems to flash before our eyes every day. The eyes and brain are easily fooled by technology, and, with even more electronic miracles to come in the near future our attention spans will continue to decrease and our faces will be buried in a screen of some sort for even more hours in a day. Is it so hard to imagine there is little or no wonder left in simple things like sculpture or painting? A painter interprets what he/she sees and slops it on canvas or the side of a subway car or building. A sculptor kinda does the same thing but with a hammer and a chisel. Easy Peezy. Worth a look, but no big deal. Might look up from my handheld device...for a moment.
I challenge anyone who feels or knows nothing about art or sculpture to walk into the main hall at the Accademia Gallery and see the distant figure standing above the crowd in a circle of light and not be gobsmacked.
Michelangelo's David is a staggering vision of mythic proportions. Standing there amongst a throng of visitors, sling over his shoulder stone in hand, poised and ready to take on the "giant" Goliath. I am not an art scholar or expert on sculpture by any means, but in what little training I've had and reading I've done, the "genius" of Michelangelo was his self proclaimed ability to see the figure in the marble and simply bring them out of the stone in which they were entombed.
There are several unfinished works by the sculptor and, as you move down the hallway toward the David, you pass works the artist never managed to complete. But after closer inspection you begin to see how the master was going about bringing out the figure trapped in the stone. You can see the economy in what little of the surface area was going to waste. After all, marble wasn't cheap and the blocks had to be dragged quite a long way from quarry to studio. Look closely at the tool marks and notice how the body parts were emerging.
Look at the beautiful unfinished Pieta ("Pieta da Palestrina"). It is a more complete piece than the previous item shown. There is no doubt he knew exactly the dimensions of each figure, their positions and the proper perspective for viewing. (Once again there is controversy over who else might have done this work. Currently it stands attributed to Michelangelo. It was discovered in 1939 in the chapel of the Barberini Palace. His most famous Pieta is in the Vatican Museum but he made a number of different renderings of the scene in marble.)
The pose affords the exposure of the body of Jesus in death. Michelangelo had already begun to bring out the detail in His arm and the hand supporting him. See the musculature in that arm and the veins on the back of the hand. We can see the transition taking place from stone to high art, but it was never completed. It remains open to conjecture as to why. Usually money from a patron running out or a shift in government or church leadership could also serve to end a commission.
Now on to David. This is the 17 foot David which was commissioned to adorn the upper ring of the Florence Duomo (cathedral) dome roofline.
Two previous artists had tried their hand at working this block of marble and were fired for their trouble. Michelangelo had completed the Vatican Pieta (already a superstar at 26) and was hired to complete the David. The long and narrow, partially worked block of stone had sat for 25 years prior to his being hired. The result is simply breathtaking.
I decided to circumnavigate his body in order to fully get an idea of the detail acheived in magnificent fashion. I'm going to post the photos as a group and let you see him, however there are no photographs that have ever been taken that can capture the power of this statue. David stands at the ready. He seems relaxed but there is a tension in his arms as he holds the sling over his shoulder and palms the large stone in his right fist. His stance is braced as if to spring into action. The sheer magnitude of this carved stone is a wonder. It was an unforgettable experience just seeing the beauty wrought from a young man's hand who started to free the figure of David he saw in a block of stone 514 years ago.
A final note. After two years labor the completed 17 foot 6 ton giant of David was too heavy to be hoisted to the dome rooftop as intended. Instead David's initial home was guarding the Palazzo Vecchio or town hall of Florence in the Piazzo della Signoria.
