David (Michelangelo)
The David is a white marble sculpture 5.17 meters tall and weighing 5,572 kilograms, made by Michelangelo Buonarroti between 1501 and 1504 by Commissioned by the Opera del Duomo of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. The sculpture represents the biblical King David in the moment before facing Goliath, and was welcomed as a symbol of the Republic of Florence against the hegemony of its overthrown leaders, the Medici, and the threat of adjacent states, especially the United States. Pontifical.
The David is one of the masterpieces of the Renaissance according to most historians, and one of the most famous sculptures in the world. It is currently on display at the Accademia Gallery from Florence, although until 1873 it was located in the Plaza de la Signoría in the Tuscan capital; since then, a copy made also in white marble has been erected in its place.
Historical context
In 1434, Cosimo de' Medici assumed full power over Florence, becoming Signore of the Tuscan city. From then until 1494 there would be four successive Signori in Florence. That year a revolt against the Medici broke out in Florence, when the Signore Piero de' Medici surrendered unconditionally before the advance of Charles VIII of France towards the Kingdom of Naples. The religious Girolamo Savonarola took advantage of the discontent of the Florentine population to overthrow the Medici. The angry mob sacked the monarch's palace and the Republic of Florence was proclaimed under the theocratic leadership advocated by Savonarola.
The Republic of Florence would be governed by a confalonier of justice and eight priors, who would constitute the new republican Signoria. From the hand of Savonarola, a fierce persecution of everything that could be considered "vain" would be carried out, creating a bonfire of the vanities in Piazza della Signoria in which everything considered sinful was burned, including works by Michelangelo or Botticelli, who were thrown into the fire by their own creators. Dozens of people were also sentenced to the stake for "heretics" or "sinners."
The disputes between Savonarola and the Borgia family, especially with Pope Alexander VI, would end up costing the Florentine priest his life. On May 13, 1497, Alexander VI excommunicated Savonarola; the pope's followers entered Florence and imprisoned him along with several of his followers. The strongest accusations that he faced were his disobedience, and contempt for the precept, and pontifical censures with which he had been ordered to refrain from preaching; another, to have ardently requested that the King of France Charles VIII enter Italy with his army to subjugate his provinces under the pretext of reforming the Court of Rome, and customs of the Ecclesiastics. On May 8, 1498, Savonarola signed his confession, and on the 23rd of the same month he was burned at the stake along with two other followers in Piazza della Signoria, the center of Florentine power.
No one held the power left by Savonarola until 1502, when Piero Soderini became a life-long King of Justice, in an attempt to end the instability of the Florentine Republic. Soderini became the highest authority in Florence, with power comparable to that of the Signori de' Medici. While the republic lasted, strong tensions existed between sectors in favor of a return of the Medici to the city, and those who opposed a return to the original Signoria.
Story of David
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In 1501, those responsible for the Opera del Duomo (secular institution in charge of the conservation and maintenance of the goods belonging to sacred places, such as churches), work office of the Cathedral of Florence, and several members of the influential Guild of Wool Merchants, proposed the construction of twelve large sculptures of characters from the Old Testament that would be placed on the external buttresses of the apse of Santa Maria del Fiore. Before David , only two of these sculptures had been sculpted, one by Donatello and the other by his disciple Agostino di Duccio. The latter received another commission in 1464, this time to make a sculpture of David.
The block of marble from which the David was created had been extracted from the Fantiscritti quarry, in Carrara, and had been transported to Florence by the Mediterranean Sea and up the Arno River to the city. The 18-foot-tall block, dubbed "the Giant", had been damaged by an artist named Simone da Fiesole, who had damaged it by trying to carve on it. The block was pushed aside by those in charge of Santa Maria del Fiore and abandoned for years. Both Agostino di Duccio and Antonio Rossellino carved the block without success, leaving it with several fractures and half-worked parts. The authorities of the Opera del Duomo began the search for a sculptor who could finish the job. Several artists were consulted about the possibilities of sculpting the David, including Michelangelo.
Following the expulsion of the Medici from Florence in 1494, Michelangelo had been forced to return to his father's home, traveling to Venice, Bologna, and Rome. In Rome, Pope Julius II had commissioned the Pietà del Vaticano. Michelangelo had not yet carried out any important work in his hometown, so he took an aggressive stance to have the sculpture of David commissioned to him, which generated tensions with the rest of the Florentine sculptors. In 1501, the Opera del Duomo in Florence officially commissioned the sculpture of David from Michelangelo, twenty-five years after Rossellino abandoned work on the block of marble. The artist began work on the sculpture on September 13, a month after receiving the commission, and would work on it for two years.
After seeing the finished work, the court falconer Piero Soderini finally decided to place it in Piazza della Signoria, attributing to the work a more civil value than the original religious one. Michelangelo prevailed over a commission of famous Florentine artists, including Andrea della Robbia, Piero di Cosimo, Pietro Perugino, Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli and Cosimo Rosselli, who wanted to place the statue in the Loggia dei Lanzi. Michelangelo imposed his criteria of placing it in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, although this decision left David unprotected against the inclement weather. The sculpture was transferred from the Opera del Duomo to Piazza della Signoria on the night of May 18, 1504, and was raised and placed in its final location on June 8 of the same year. Finally, the David was discovered in the city of Florence on September 8, 1504.
Technique
The preparation work for the final sculpture included sketches, drawings, and small-scale models in wax or terracotta. Michelangelo went directly from these preliminary studies to work on the marble, without making a full-scale plaster model, as other artists of the time such as Giambologna did. The David was sculpted by chisel from different points of view, since Michelangelo designed it to be admired from any point of its perimeter, in a way diametrically opposed to the medieval way that designed the sculptures to be seen exclusively from the front.
Analysis of the work
The David contrasts with previous representations by Donatello and Verrocchio in which David appears with the body of the slain Goliath. In Michelangelo's version, Goliath does not appear, so it is interpreted that he has not yet been defeated. David's body is that of a muscular man, not the boy in the works of Donatello and Verrocchio. Instead of appearing victorious as in the two aforementioned versions, David appears tense and ready for combat. His body is turned in a slight contrapposto: the left leg is brought forward to the right, the left arm is raised and curved until the hand almost touches the shoulder, while the right arm is dropped until the hand touches the shoulder. thigh, the torso subtly curves, the head looks to the left, keeping its eyes fixed on its target, with a frown. His face shows this restrained tension, great concentration, and his nostrils wide open. The movement is contained, centripetal with lines of force that return to the block. The look has been interpreted in the sense that the sculpture shows the moment in which David has made the decision to attack, but he has not yet started the fight. Other experts, such as Giuseppe Andreani (director of the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence), believe, however, that the scene shows the moment immediately after the end of the battle, and that David calmly contemplates his victory.
Style and detail
Michelangelo believed that in every block of marble he worked on there was a soul, a latent work that he tried to recover. In the case of David, the multiple fractures and faults that the block had were leading Michelangelo towards the final form of the sculpture. The large hole that the block had on its left flank causes the sculpture to rest completely on its right foot, generating a contrapposto in the figure and making the left part of the figure sway towards the left side. right of the body. David's head turns to his left, while his shoulders lean to the right, away from his hips. In the High Renaissance, the contrapposto was considered a symbol of ancient sculpture, highly appreciated at the time. The David became the paradigm of Renaissance sculpture thanks to its intelligent use of the contrapposto.
The proportions of David do not correspond exactly to those of the human figure: his head, hands and torso are larger than what is stipulated according to classical proportions. Some critics have seen in this apparent disproportion a sample of mannerism for highlighting the fundamental elements of the composition, although another explanation would be due to the original location of the statue: on one of the buttresses of the Florence cathedral, for which the proportions of the sculpture should appear correctly at a certain distance.
There is an inconsistency: David is apparently not circumcised despite being Jewish, which would contradict Jewish law. This apparent incoherence has been justified by some critics and historians due to the vision that Renaissance art had of the human being, less linked to religion and more to the values of beauty.
Damage suffered by the work and restoration work
The David has suffered numerous mishaps throughout its history, both in its original location in Piazza della Signoria and inside the Accademia Gallery, starting in 1873.
In 1504, while the move to Piazza della Signoria was taking place, he was stoned to death by young supporters of the Medici. In 1512, lightning struck the base of the sculpture. In 1527, during a popular revolt against the Medici, his left arm was amputated, after a bench fell on him thrown from a window. The arm was replaced sixteen years later. In 1843, a cleaning with hydrochloric acid was carried out on the entire surface of the sculpture, removing the protective patina that Michelangelo had applied to David and leaving the marble exposed to the elements. Finally, in 1873, the David was moved from its place in Piazza della Signoria to the Accademia Gallery, to avoid damage. In 1910, a 1:1 scale replica of the sculpture was placed in its previous location in Piazza della Signoria, which remains today.
In 1991, a man destroyed a toe on David's left foot after hitting it with a hammer. The toe was later reconstructed, and to prevent further damage to the sculpture, an armored glass structure was placed around all of its flanks the base of the David. The investigations made from the marble fragments recovered after the Cannata attack revealed that the type of marble with which the David was built contained microscopic holes that produced a greater degradation than that of other types of marble.
In 2003, the first restoration of David since 1843 began, amid a strong controversy over the method to be used and the depth of the restoration. The person in charge of the restoration work, Agnese Parronchi, was forced to resign due to her disagreements with the Superintendent of Artistic Assets for the Tuscany region, Antonio Paolucci. Parronchi was in favor of carrying out a dry and non-invasive intervention, using brushes, cotton swabs and erasers. Paolucci and the director of the Accademia Gallery, Franca Falleti, were in favor of a moist intervention, using distilled water compresses applied to the marble for fifteen or twenty minutes. James Beck, director of ArtWatch International, launched a campaign calling for the restoration work to be cancelled. Ultimately, the restoration was carried out using the wet method, and was completed on April 22, 2004 under the direction of Cinzia Parnigoni. The David was left on view to visitors to the Accademia Gallery, although it was finally shown to the public again on May 24, 2004.