David (Michelangelo)

The David by Michelangelo (1475-1564), created 1501-1504 in Florence, is the first monumental statue of the High Renaissance and is considered the most famous sculpture in art history. The original is located since 1873 in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence.

Description

The sculpture represents the Biblical David at the moment is, in which he, the slingshot already been created on the shoulder, the fight against the giant Goliath receives (1 Sam 17 EU). David's body appears in a relaxed contrapposto position, carelessly wearing the sling over his left shoulder. The embattled voltage is seen in the protruding veins of the right hand, which surrounds the invisible stone as missiles, but especially in the neck and facial area: in the tight neck tendons, the tight lips and nostrils, the knitted brow. David's gaze is fixed on a point in the distance.

Michelangelo's representation differs not only in size - the 5.17 -meter-high figure weighs an estimated nearly six tons - but fundamentally different from previous versions of the Florentine Renaissance; with him, David is seen before the actual fight against the giants. Both the sculptor Donatello and Verrocchio and the painter Andrea del Castagno show the youthful hero with the severed head of Goliath.

The unusual choice of timing, therefore, directs the viewer's attention is no longer on the fight ended, but on the imminent victory.

Formation

1501 Michelangelo received by the influential Arte Della Lana, the wool guild of weavers in Florence the contract for a colossal statue of David. He was a huge Carrara marble block, specifically a Statuarioblock, available encamped in Domgarten since 1468. Already Agostino di Duccio in 1464 was commissioned to create a block from the David figure, and 1476 likewise Antonio Rosselino; both sculptors had abandoned the work and left the massive block in roughly hewn state. Michelangelo was now to complete the nearly forty years earlier decision of the Opera del Duomo plan to complete the program of Figure outer buttresses of Santa Maria del Fiore by David. The at first glance deficient appearing proportions of the figure were adjusted outside the Cathedral Choir of the strong bottom view of the intended location at high altitude. Among art historians, there is a very controversial and not to be proven thesis that the attitude of the jobs created by Michelangelo statue with the angled top left arm, holding the slingshot, was due to the only partial grossly worked out by the predecessors proportions. The missing of the left forearm marble volume at this point would have the sculptor forced to close, whereas Michelangelo had recognized the formal solution of the arm angulation and realized that you do not need this volume fraction.

In the spring of 1504 chose a specially appointed by the Signoria of the city commission, which included among others, the artist Piero di Cosimo, Sandro Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci, but for a different location for the nearly completed David. Although opinions diverged with respect to its lineup, the Commission selected by majority the square in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, the seat of the Signoria. On September 8, the sculpture was unveiled there solemnly. Was on his way from the Duomo to the Piazza della Signoria, is reported to have been thrown at the skeleton of the character of young people with stones and the Signoria had provided for their protection a guard.

Landmark

The David was only for a short time the symbol of the free citizens of the city of Florence. 1512 forced the Medici, who had been banished from the city in 1494, their return to Florence, in their train, there was strenuous arguments. A bank flew out a window of the Palazzo Vecchio and smashed the left arm of the statue. The young Giorgio Vasari gathered up the broken pieces and saved them to. After the rule of the Medici was finally secured, he handed it in 1543 Cosimo I, who restored the figure.

19th century to today

In the 19th century the surface of the marble sculpture dismissed because of the weather and the centuries-long infestation of bird excrement on such significant damage that you wanted to give her now a closed place. After long negotiations - we're talking about thirty years - it was 1873 in the Florentine Accademia a specially built for them cupola, designed by the Italian architect Emilio de Fabris Tribuna, where it today, cleaned of all traces of its history, tourist attraction become is. 1910 a marble copy was placed in its original location in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. A bronze casting is the center of an ensemble on the scale around 1900 Piazzale Michelangelo, the of - is flanked another Florentine Michelangelo's sculptures - also drained in bronze.

In 1991 the statue was damaged by a person who could knock out a few pieces of marble from the toes of the left foot with a hammer before she was overwhelmed by security forces.

2010 brought the Italian Culture Minister Sandro Bondi property claims of the Italian State in the figure.

Copies of " David " is now worldwide. The " David " by Hans -Peter Feldmann has been found after stopovers in Cologne and Dusseldorf since 2010 in the Kant - Park in Duisburg its final location.