Posted on 09/07/2004 7:00:47 AM PDT by presidio9
This September 8 marks the 500th anniversary of Michelangelo’s “David,” one of art-history’s greatest masterpieces. Crowds of visitors have been drawn to Florence to experience this magnificent sculpture over the past 500 years--and they continue to visit in record numbers. Why does a work of art created half a millennium ago possess such a timeless, universal appeal? What meaning does this 500-year-old sculpture hold for modern-day man?
To answer these questions, consider the significance of Michelangelo’s “David” to the Renaissance Florentines who first revered it.
During the 1000 years preceding the Renaissance, the West had been mired in the medieval Christian worldview, which divided the universe into two spheres: a heavenly realm of perfection, happiness and truth, and this dark world of imperfection, misery and falsehood. Man, forever paying for his crime of Original Sin, was regarded as powerless and ignorant, with blind obedience to God and his earthly spokesmen as his only recourse.
As expressed by one of the leading Christians of the time, Saint Augustine, man is “crooked and sordid, bespotted and ulcerous.” Consequently, man as depicted in medieval art is a deformed beast, wailing for the salvation of his soul. At best, the human ideal was represented as a bloody, beaten and crucified Jesus Christ; a man who resigned himself to his preordained fate: a violent, sacrificial death.
The Renaissance was the rebirth of man’s life on earth. Freed from the shackles of authority, man’s mind was viewed as able to understand the universe. Far from being a tortured soul trapped in a deformed bodily prison, man was regarded as rational, beautiful and heroic--worthy of happiness and capable of great achievement. Man, in the Renaissance view, need not bow down in passive resignation, praying for salvation. He can choose to undertake great challenges in the face of seemingly impossible odds; he can actively pursue success, fight for victory--even slay a giant.
Michelangelo’s “David” is the best expression of this Renaissance sense of life. The sculpture was inspired by the story of the young shepherd boy who chose to fight a far stronger adversary in order to save his people from invasion. Wearing no armor, with a sling as his only weapon, David defeats Goliath using superior skill and courage.
Although there had been many earlier portrayals of David in art, Michelangelo’s was revolutionary. The others depict David after the battle had been won--often standing on the severed head of a defeated Goliath. Michelangelo chose to show David not in victory, but at that point in time that prefigured victory: in that instance between conscious choice and conscious action, that moment when an individual makes a choice--and commits to act on that choice. David stands, with furrowed brow, looking over his left shoulder into the distance for Goliath. Michelangelo shows David not as a triumphant victor, but as a thinking, resolute being--the preconditions for victory.
The key to the “David”’s appeal is Michelangelo’s magnificent projection of man at his best--vigorously healthy, beautiful, rational, competent. It expresses a heroic view of man and of a universe auspicious to his success. Such a projection is of immeasurable worth to anyone who holds such a sense of life--whether that person lived 500 years ago or lives today.
Unfortunately, this kind of artistic projection has almost entirely been relegated to the past.
Today intellectuals once again view man as an ugly, corrupt being, trapped in an incomprehensible universe and not in control of his own destiny. Consequently, man and his values are not considered a serious subject for art by Modernists; “serious art” contains the defecations of an elephant or the rusty steel of a garbage dump.
Michelangelo’s “David” thoroughly rejects both the Christian and Modernist conceptions of man. The David projects man as neither a monster nor a hapless victim, but as an efficacious and noble being. The “David” is the ultimate projection of heroic choice and heroic action.
What is the meaning of Michelangelo’s “David” for modern-day man? The same as it was 500 years ago--the brilliant projection of the ideal.
Michaelangelo seems to have forgotten that David was Jewish......
The most telling part of the statue is David's hands. Unlike greek sculpture that was an exercise in perfection, Michaelangelo was rying to use David as a metaphor for both man's greatness and his flaws.
David's hands are oversized (something which you would never see in greek sculpture) this, according to scholars, is to represent man's tendancy to greed and violence.
While it may not show man as a humble monster, it does show him as an imperfect being.
I see that his work and this article has had a profound effect on you.
The Ideal |
 The Real |
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Honestly, you don't need to read anything more into it than that.
Today intellectuals once again view man as an ugly, corrupt being, trapped in an incomprehensible universe and not in control of his own destiny. Consequently, man and his values are not considered a serious subject for art by Modernists; “serious art” contains the defecations of an elephant or the rusty steel of a garbage dump.
Michelangelo’s “David” thoroughly rejects both the Christian and Modernist conceptions of man. The David projects man as neither a monster nor a hapless victim, but as an efficacious and noble being. The “David” is the ultimate projection of heroic choice and heroic action.
The first paragraph is ok.
I do not agree that Michaelangelo's "David" rejects the Christian conception of man in projecting him as an "efficacious and noble being."
Also, this would be a viewpoint from the Rennaisance vs. comparing it to today's Christianity.
Western Culture Bump.
Secondly, he never does get around to the most important point about "David" which is that with this statue Michelangelo proved that he was the equal of the sculptors in the ancient Classical period.
Michelangelo was the first sculptor in the West to demonstrate such high skill since 538 AD.
Boy, was 538 AD a really bad year ~ and finally, about 1504, just short of a thousand years later, there was real evidence that the then modern age was catching up to the ancient times.
It's noteworthy that in 1504 the ancient texts preserved by the Moslems in Toledo had been in the hands of Western Europeans for most of a century, and would soon be printed for massive distribution (bringing about a revolution in science), the Americas had been discovered (with a consequental increase in specie), and the personal firearm was near production.
"David" announces a New Age!
Interesting words "KEY to DAVID".......
It seems that everyone thru the 500 years since has beleived that this David is THE David of Biblical history. Could this have been just a guy named David who posed for the statue? I am not a art critic. The statue is beautiful and a true masterpiece, but I think intellectuals of all ages tend to see things that aren't there and read between the lines things that were never written.....
And then there's Brunelleschi's "Dome" atop the cathedral in Florence -- as much a statement (in architectural language) as Michelangelo's "David".
Cause this David has a sling, does he not??? Maybe I am wrong.
No one has mentioned that Michelangelo was gay (hee-hee).
Sounds like you had a wonderful trip. Those sites, along with a trip to San Giaminiano, were highlights of my trip in '99.
Go away, cretin.
No, it is well documented that the subject was THE Biblical David. Michelangelo won the right to work on this particularly large block of marble owned by the city of Florence in competition with other great sculptors of the day. The block had been sitting around for many years and was thought to be ruined by a previous artist. Michelangelo devised an ingenius scaffolding system that allowed him to work the column on an angle angle.
From the artist's diary:
: "When I returned to Florence, I found myself famous. The City Council asked me to carve a colossal David from a nineteen-foot block of marble -- and damaged to boot! I locked myself away in a workshop behind the cathedral, hammered and chiseled at the towering block for three long years. In spite of the opposition of a committee of fellow artists, I insisted that the figure should stand before the Palazzo Vecchio, as a symbol of our Republic. I had my way. Archways were torn down, narrow streets widened...it took forty men five days to move it. Once in place, all Florence was astounded. A civic hero, he was a warning...whoever governed Florence should govern justly and defend it bravely. Eyes watchful...the neck of a bull...hands of a killer...the body, a reservoir of energy. He stands poised to strike."
Dang, all the good ones are gay.
Thank you for the historical background. Now I know......
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