Art during the Renaissance Period – Part 4 (Michelangelo Buonarroti – David)

 

              

                    Michelangelo began work on another famous work of his at the age of 26 in Florence. The statue of David is a marble sculpture of the Biblical hero, David; it  stands at the imposing height of 17 feet in the Accademia di Belli Arti, Florence, Italy. This statue is also portrayed differently from the way it had been done before. Donatello had portrayed David (as an adolesecent) at the moment after his combat with Goliath, appearing victorious over a foe much larger and stronger than him. Michelangelo`s David has much more force, he is a youth into adulthood, and is depicted before the combat, at the moment when he has just decided to take up the challenge. This is an important moment because this moment in particular, shows his courage in deciding to fight someone who is armed and stronger than he, with only a slingshot at his disposal.  His strength comes from the inner conviction of being in the right. His body is still relaxed in the contrapposto pose, but that he has made the decision to fight, we can see from his furrowed brows, intense (but slightly uncertain) gaze, taut tendons in the neck and the nerves standing out on his right hand as he clutches the stone. He strikes Goliath with the stone in between his eyebrows, fells him down and slays his head with his sword. He succeeds in his task through his spiritual strength, intelligence and skill rather than through brute force. In his writings, Michelangelo describes his warrior-hero: “Eyes watchful…the neck of a bull…hands of a killer…the body, a reservoir of energy. He stands poised to strike.”

Michelangelo`s David

Marble sculpture, 17 feet tall,  housed  in the Accademia di Belli Arti, Florence, Italy

 

The above image is licenced by David Gaya  under the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.

	Datum/Tiet	Duumnagelbild	Grött	Bruker	Kommentar
aktuell	17:05, 30. Apr. 2005		1.200×1.600 (173 KB)	David	(Michelangelo’s David Author: David Gaya License: {{GFDL}} Category:Michelangelo)

 

Donatello`s David

Bronze statue, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, h.158 cm

 

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license by by Patrick A. Rodgers

	Date/Time	Thumbnail	Dimensions	User	Comment
current	15:38, 12 January 2010		1,066×1,719 (697 KB)	Tetraktys	(== {{int:filedesc}} == {{Information |Description = David |Source = [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Florence_-_David_by_Donatello.jpg] |Date = 1430 – 1432 |Author = original file by {{#if:12152206@N03|[http://flickr.com/photos/12152206@N03 Patr)

 

Continued in my next post….