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In 1501 Michelangelo was commissioned to create the David by the
Arte della Lana (Guild of Wool Merchant), who were responsible for the upkeep and
the decoration of the Cathedral in Florence. For this purpose, he was given a block
of marble which Agostino di Duccio had already attempted to fashion forty years previously,
perhaps with the same subject in mind.
Michelangelo breaks away from the traditional way of representing David. He does
not present us with the winner, the giant's head at his feet and the powerful sword
in his hand, |
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but portrays the youth in the phase
immediately preceding the battle: perhaps he has caught him just in the moment when
he has heard that his people are hesitating, and he sees Goliath jeering and mocking
them. The artist places him in the most perfect " contraposto", as in the
most beautiful Greek representations of heroes. The right-hand side of the statue
is smooth and composed while the left-side, from the outstretched foot all the way
up to the disheveled hair is openly active and dynamic. The muscles and the tendons
are developed only to the point where they can still be interpreted as the perfect
instrument for a strong will, and not to the point of becoming individual self-governing
forms.
Once the statue was completed, a committee of the highest ranking citizens and artists
decided that it must be placed in the main square of the town, in front of the Palazzo
Vecchio, the Town Hall. It was the first time since antiquity that a large statue
of a nude was to be exhibited in a public place. This was only allowed thanks to
the action of two forces, which by a fortunate chance complemented each other: the
force of an artist able to create, for a political community, the symbol of its highest
political ideals, and, on the other hand, that of a community, which understood the
power of this symbol. "Strength" and "Wrath" were the two most
important virtues, characteristic of the ancient patron of the city Hercules. Both
these qualities, passionate strength and wrath, were embodied in the statue of David. |
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