David

3/25/15

Day 69

My recent obsession (if you can call it that) with the David was finally capped off by an art history field trip to the Accademia. My professor told us a lot about the history of Michelangelo's slaves but also a lot about the background of the David statue and about Michelangelo himself. 

First of all, he has a last name. It's Buonarroti. Before coming to Florence, I didn't know that he lived with the Medici for awhile when he was younger. And I didn't know he was a poet in addition to being a painter, sculptor, and architect or that these three became his logo, which he drew as 3 interlocking rings. I think I had heard of his philosophy before that "it's the sculptor's duty to reveal the soul of the marble, which is trapped inside" and really liked it but didn't remember whose it was. 

Anyway, the slaves were originally made for a pope's tomb that was supposed to be a huge deal. But the pope got distracted and said "can you fresco the ceiling of this chapel for my uncle who died?" and Michelangelo responded "no I don't know how to paint" before painting the Sistine Chapel. Then, the pope died and so his tomb got downgraded. But after Michelangelo died too, the extra figures he'd carved for it, the "slaves", ended up in the Grotta di Buontalenti in the Boboli Gardens. They lived there until the originals were preserved in the Accademia where we were standing now. 

As for the David, someone else originally started working on it but didn't finish. Then another guy started working but also didn't finish. It's not good quality marble and it sat outside for 50 years before Michelangelo got to it. He was only 26 and it only took him 2.5 years. Florence had always identified as David but Michelangelo's David was different. He doesn't look young or skinny at all and Goliath's head isn't visible in the sculpture. And if he was fighting in a war, would he really have been naked? So he took some artistic liberties. 

Over the years, David got a little beat up. He was cleaned with acid at some point, had a bench thrown out of Palazzo Signoria on him, had a loincloth drilled on, and got his toe hammered by a crazy man. And before he was protected by a plexiglass barrier, people could walk up and touch his toes and enough people did it so now his foot is worn away.