I'm sitting here in my Lincolnshire study thinking about a talk I'm preparing for a trip to the States at the end of the month, but I've suddently become distracted by a tiny 3 inches by 3 inches fridge magnet calendar I bought in Florence last year. I have it fastened to the side of the filing cabinet which adjoins my desk. The image for the month of March is of the famous Michelangelo statue of David and its an iconic and alluring work I've been meaning to blog about for ages.
Only a few weeks ago, when Jon and I were in Florence, we'd renewed out acquaintance with it and said "hello" to David as we saw him on his pedestal outside the main entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio.
I first came across David in another context years ago at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London long before I'd become seriously interested in the history of art. Strolling along one of the ground floor corridors, not really knowing much about what I was looking at, I came across an entrance to a huge galleried room and from my viewpoint all I could see was what looked like a massive 14 foot tall marble statue of a handsome and nude young man. Curious to discover more (who could resist such a challenge?) I ventured in to explore this amazing and colossal work of art.
There's something about sculpture which draws me to it like no other art form and I think it must be its three dimensionality - enabling as it does viewings from multiple angles. Today, be it a Henry Moore a Tingueley or a Michelangelo - I'm always enthralled and as I think back to that day at the V and A - I realize the viewing of David was a singular step in my growing attraction for Renaissance art.Years later I would find myself taking student groups to see it and we would sit on fold-up stools surrounding the sculpture and have the most engaging and wonderful discussions about what was in front of us and how it was to be interpreted and what people were experiencing as they looked at it. I can remember some of these sessions as if they took place yesterday and I've just thought of the fact that during one of them a young Prince William joined our viewing briefly whilst on a tour of the gallery with his art tutor from Eton College. I can hear you saying, however, "but David's in Florence" and indeed he is. The sculpture at the V and A is one of hundreds of accurately copied plaster casts of world famous works of art that were commissioned and collected by the museum in the second half of the 19th century and displayed in these Cast Courts to help students study and educate themselves about sculpture. When you think about it this was a progressive and forward looking initiative for those unable to visit the sites where the originals were. Today these cast courts are gems of the museum and worthy of a visit at any time of year. The room where the David can be found has been recently restored to its original decorative scheme and the David statue has also been cleaned as can be seen in the illustration below.
In the Spring of 1501 the 26 year old Michelangelo Buonarotti was working away from his native Florence in Rome when he received a message from friends to return to his home city to try for an important sculpture commission. A huge block of fine Carrara marble, which had been standing in the yard of the Office of Works of the cathedral for 40 years, was to be offered to an artist for an important sculpture commission to produce a statue that would stand high up on one of the Duomo's buttresses. The piece of marble was one Michelangelo had had his eye on for a while and it presented many challenges. The block had been quarried at Carrara near Pisa in about 1460 and taken to Florence and abandoned. One of the biggest challenges for an artist in 1501 was to sculpt a block which had first been used by another sculptor. The artist Antonio Rossellino, assistant to Donatello, had attempted the first blocking out stages of a figure of Hercules in the 1460's, made mistakes and then lacked the skills to put them right. The young Michelangelo was attracted to solving this problem as well as being drawn by the opportunity to produce a giant statue that would be seen by everyone in Florence, locals and visitors alike. In his home city the chance of improving his own and his family's good name was irresistable.
Michelangelo took the comission and agreed to complete the statue in two years and for the sum of 6 gold florins a month. The subject was to be a traditional Old Testamont one - the story of David, slayer of the Philestine giant Goliath. Within a month he'd completed the modellos for the piece and was ready to start work on the block. A secretive artist he ordered the block to be completely covered with a wooden screen and he would soon be working hard with hammer and chisel commenting "my task is to remove everything that is not David" - an insightful way of expressing how the sculpture was to be created. This technique of removing material from wood or stone by a carving process to reveal the sculpture is an awesome task. Once material has been removed it can't be replaced. To produce something like the David is mind boggling in its complexity of creativity and execution - particularly when the block was flawed to begin with. In reality - it would take almost twice as long to produce, despite the artist toiling ceaselessly day after day on the project. He was soon to discover that the great marble block was flawed in another way - in what was to be the area of David's legs, the marble was streaked with veins making the potential for breakage huge. What a daunting task!
The statue was virtually finished by the sumer of 1504 and what emerged from behind the screens was a 14 foot tall nude male Greek god like figure of David, the maximum height he could get out of the block. It had no drapery, an exaggerated head and huge hands. The artist was compensating for the fact people would view it high up on the parapet of the Duomo. First persion to see it was the Florentine Gonfalonier - Pier Soderini - who according to Vasari writing about the incident in 1568 - is noted as saying to the artist that David's nose was too thick. At least he wasn't commenting on another part of the statue's anatomy! Michelangelo is said to have climbed the scaffolding surrounding the statue, grabbing his chisel on the way and also collecting a handful of dust from one of the scaffold planks. When he reached the head level he struck the chisel on a piece of marble and allowed dust to fall through the scaffolding to the floor - in fact he hadn't touched the statue at all.
When he climbed down to the ground Soderini is noted to have said to Michelangelo."You have given it life!"
So impressed were the commissioners with the statue that the decision was soon taken not to place it high on the duomo and a committee was formed to consider other suitable sites. After much debate and disagreement, the decision was taken to place it on a pedestal outside the Palazzo Vecchio - the civic headquarters of Florence in the Piazza della Signoria. The statue was to be moved to its new place starting on the 14th May 1504 but even before the delicate operation began an incident occurred which shocked Michelangelo and the commissioners. Youths threw stones at the statue in the evening when it was dark. Were they objecting to the statue's nudity or to its potential political symbolism? Nobody seems to have known. It took 4 days and 40 men to move the statue to the civic square. Finally, after great difficulty, it was hoisted on to its new pedestal on the 8th June and officially unveiled to the public on the 8th September 1504.
Such a huge and monumental classical statue had not been seen in Europe since antiquity. Many considered Michelangelo had achieved the impossible, producing such a magnficent and grandiose unique sculpture which would become the very symbol of the city itself. When I've taken students to see the David reproduction statue in London I've always tried to draw out of them what they see as being most important about what Michelangelo achieved when he created this beautiful object.
The artist, always more of a sculptor than a painter, had made the statue in the image of a beautiful Greek God and interpreted David as an "ideal" man embodying all the attributes of the finest specimens of the type. Yet at the same time David is represented as an individual and a man of the moment. Other earlier statues of David, the one undertaken by Donatello for example, show him victorious over his opponent, his foot on Goliath's head. Here the deed has not yet been committed and David is only moments away from firing his shot off against his opponent. Michelangelo's intimate knowledge of anatomy, gained by meticulous study and dissection of human bodies, show not only his ability to represent the male body accurately, but also to show the behaviour of muscles in tension as David gets ready to use his sling. Notice the tension in the huge hand hanging next to his leg. Similarly, if one looks at the head of David - the psychological angst is also evident; his expression is full of apprehension.
The subject of "David" was highly significant in relation to commission. In the Old Testament David had fought for the freedom of his people - an underling against a great giant of an opponent, but he came out victor. The message is clear - Florence is not to underestimated or messed with by its potential enemies or the consequences could be dire. David was the symbol of Florence's freedom and strength.
Michelangelo returned to Rome to work in 1505 and David remained on his pedestal outside the Palazzo Vecchio all the way through to 30th July 1873. Following the Unification of Italy the decision was taken, for conservation reasons, to remove the original to Galleria dell Accademia and he arrived there on August 8th of that year. He was placed in a dedicated space in the Tribune Gallery and has remained there ever since, undergoing a major cleaning and restoration in 2004. A reproduction of the original was produced and placed on the original pedestal outside the Palazzo Vecchio and a rather pathetic bronze facsimile was also erected in the Piazza Michelangelo high above the city. David remains one of the most popular tourist attractions in Florence and every year thousands flock to see him in the Galleria. Some days the queues wind all the way round the block.
Oh - and two final things. When a visit to the Cast Courts at the South Kensington Museum was proposed for Queen Victoria the powers that be decreed that she might be offended by David's nudity. A specially designed plaster fig leaf was produced to cover the statue's modesty and there is still a hook for this at the rear of the statue above his bottom. It is shown below. The other point is amusing. So iconic has the David become in modern society that it has been used for all sorts of paraphernalia. I've seen table lamps sculpted from plastic of the David's head with different coloured light bulbs inside, fridge magnets of David with assortments of 'cool' clothes to dress him in and adverts like the one below for designer underpants. Is this a travesty? - I don't know the answer to that question - you can make your own minde up about that one!!
Ciao & KBO
Ian
Only a few weeks ago, when Jon and I were in Florence, we'd renewed out acquaintance with it and said "hello" to David as we saw him on his pedestal outside the main entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio.
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| THE "DAVID" STATUE OUTSIDE THE PALAZZO DELLA SIGNORIA, FLORENCE |
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| VICTORIAN PLASTER CAST OF MICHELANGELO'S "DAVID" IN THE CAST COURTS AT THE VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM IN LONDON |
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| CLEANING THE "DAVID" PLASTER CAST AT THE V & A |
Michelangelo took the comission and agreed to complete the statue in two years and for the sum of 6 gold florins a month. The subject was to be a traditional Old Testamont one - the story of David, slayer of the Philestine giant Goliath. Within a month he'd completed the modellos for the piece and was ready to start work on the block. A secretive artist he ordered the block to be completely covered with a wooden screen and he would soon be working hard with hammer and chisel commenting "my task is to remove everything that is not David" - an insightful way of expressing how the sculpture was to be created. This technique of removing material from wood or stone by a carving process to reveal the sculpture is an awesome task. Once material has been removed it can't be replaced. To produce something like the David is mind boggling in its complexity of creativity and execution - particularly when the block was flawed to begin with. In reality - it would take almost twice as long to produce, despite the artist toiling ceaselessly day after day on the project. He was soon to discover that the great marble block was flawed in another way - in what was to be the area of David's legs, the marble was streaked with veins making the potential for breakage huge. What a daunting task!
The statue was virtually finished by the sumer of 1504 and what emerged from behind the screens was a 14 foot tall nude male Greek god like figure of David, the maximum height he could get out of the block. It had no drapery, an exaggerated head and huge hands. The artist was compensating for the fact people would view it high up on the parapet of the Duomo. First persion to see it was the Florentine Gonfalonier - Pier Soderini - who according to Vasari writing about the incident in 1568 - is noted as saying to the artist that David's nose was too thick. At least he wasn't commenting on another part of the statue's anatomy! Michelangelo is said to have climbed the scaffolding surrounding the statue, grabbing his chisel on the way and also collecting a handful of dust from one of the scaffold planks. When he reached the head level he struck the chisel on a piece of marble and allowed dust to fall through the scaffolding to the floor - in fact he hadn't touched the statue at all.
When he climbed down to the ground Soderini is noted to have said to Michelangelo."You have given it life!"
So impressed were the commissioners with the statue that the decision was soon taken not to place it high on the duomo and a committee was formed to consider other suitable sites. After much debate and disagreement, the decision was taken to place it on a pedestal outside the Palazzo Vecchio - the civic headquarters of Florence in the Piazza della Signoria. The statue was to be moved to its new place starting on the 14th May 1504 but even before the delicate operation began an incident occurred which shocked Michelangelo and the commissioners. Youths threw stones at the statue in the evening when it was dark. Were they objecting to the statue's nudity or to its potential political symbolism? Nobody seems to have known. It took 4 days and 40 men to move the statue to the civic square. Finally, after great difficulty, it was hoisted on to its new pedestal on the 8th June and officially unveiled to the public on the 8th September 1504.
Such a huge and monumental classical statue had not been seen in Europe since antiquity. Many considered Michelangelo had achieved the impossible, producing such a magnficent and grandiose unique sculpture which would become the very symbol of the city itself. When I've taken students to see the David reproduction statue in London I've always tried to draw out of them what they see as being most important about what Michelangelo achieved when he created this beautiful object.
The artist, always more of a sculptor than a painter, had made the statue in the image of a beautiful Greek God and interpreted David as an "ideal" man embodying all the attributes of the finest specimens of the type. Yet at the same time David is represented as an individual and a man of the moment. Other earlier statues of David, the one undertaken by Donatello for example, show him victorious over his opponent, his foot on Goliath's head. Here the deed has not yet been committed and David is only moments away from firing his shot off against his opponent. Michelangelo's intimate knowledge of anatomy, gained by meticulous study and dissection of human bodies, show not only his ability to represent the male body accurately, but also to show the behaviour of muscles in tension as David gets ready to use his sling. Notice the tension in the huge hand hanging next to his leg. Similarly, if one looks at the head of David - the psychological angst is also evident; his expression is full of apprehension.The subject of "David" was highly significant in relation to commission. In the Old Testament David had fought for the freedom of his people - an underling against a great giant of an opponent, but he came out victor. The message is clear - Florence is not to underestimated or messed with by its potential enemies or the consequences could be dire. David was the symbol of Florence's freedom and strength.
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| DAVID IN FLORENCE'S ACCADEMIA GALLERY |
Oh - and two final things. When a visit to the Cast Courts at the South Kensington Museum was proposed for Queen Victoria the powers that be decreed that she might be offended by David's nudity. A specially designed plaster fig leaf was produced to cover the statue's modesty and there is still a hook for this at the rear of the statue above his bottom. It is shown below. The other point is amusing. So iconic has the David become in modern society that it has been used for all sorts of paraphernalia. I've seen table lamps sculpted from plastic of the David's head with different coloured light bulbs inside, fridge magnets of David with assortments of 'cool' clothes to dress him in and adverts like the one below for designer underpants. Is this a travesty? - I don't know the answer to that question - you can make your own minde up about that one!!
Ciao & KBO
Ian
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