Statue of david by michelangelo buonarroti in florence David is the most recognizable silhouette The author of the marble statue is david

There are few such famous and iconic sculptures as "David" by Michelangelo in the world. From the moment the world saw this creation on September 8, 1504 in Piazza della Signoria in Florence, people never cease to admire him. But at the same time, not everyone knows the most interesting facts about this magnificent sculpture.

1. David was created with biblical motives

At first glance, the famous naked man sculpted by Michelangelo does not look like a "biblical hero" at all. But if you look closely, you can see a sling thrown over David's left shoulder, and in his right hand he squeezes a stone. Thanks to these items, David defeated the giant Goliath in the famous biblical story.

2. The statue is much taller than human growth

The height of "David" is 5.17 m, which is almost three times the height of the average person.

3. The hand of the statue is disproportionate

The arm of the statue is too large and out of proportion to the rest of the body. This asymmetry is believed to have been specifically tolerated by Michelangelo in honor of David's nickname, "manu fortis" (strong hand).

4. David is left-handed

This can be argued based on the fact that the sling lies on the left shoulder, and the stone is in the right. Oddly enough, the statue's body position is more suitable for a right-handed person.

5. The statue is carved from a single piece of marble

The block of marble that has become one of the most famous masterpieces in history proves the old adage that what is rubbish to one person is treasure to another. Michelangelo created David from a piece of marble, which had previously been abandoned twice by other sculptors. Agostino di Duccio abandoned the project to create a sculpture of David, barely starting to cut his legs.

The reason was the death of Donatello, with whom di Duccio was an apprentice. After that, the block of marble lay abandoned for 10 years. Next, Antonio Rossellino took up the statue, but he also gave up work soon after he found a crack in the block. When Michelangelo finally began work on David in 1501, a piece of marble had been waiting for him for 40 years.

6. David was originally supposed to be installed at a high altitude

In 1501, the government of the city of Florence commissioned Michelangelo to create "David" as one of the statues intended to decorate the dome of the Florentine cathedral. But after the completion of the statue, Michelangelo's patrons were so impressed with his creation that they decided to abandon this plan and place the statue in the Lanzi loggia (and then the statue moved to the Academy of Arts). In 2010, a replica of David was placed on the Florentine Cathedral, as originally intended.

7. The statue has always evoked delight

The Italian painter and architect of the sixteenth century, Giorgio Vasari, wrote about "David" as follows: "Anyone who has seen this work will no longer be surprised by any sculpture in the world."

8. Michelangelo's reputation

Five years before David's debut, Michelangelo had already become famous thanks to the sculpture "Roman Pieta". But it was thanks to "David" that the 29-year-old Renaissance painter became known as a master sculptor. Four years later, in 1508, Michelangelo began work on his greatest achievement in painting, the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel.

9. David is from ancient Greece

Michelangelo gave his sculpture a pose in which Hercules was often depicted. Some experts believe that it was Hercules who was depicted on the city seal of Florence.

10. David - a symbol of freedom

Although the sculpture originally commissioned was only of a religious nature, during Michelangelo's work on David, Florence expelled the Medici family. That is why "David" has become a symbol of republican freedom and protection from the rule of tyrants.

11. David and the Vandals

On September 14, 1991, Italian artist Piero Cannata sneaked with a small hammer to a statue on display at the Accademia Gallery in Florence. He managed to chop off part of David's toe before the visitors of the museum twisted him. A forensic examination found the Italian mentally deranged, after which he was sent to a hospital.

12. There is more than one David

Because David is one of the world's most popular works of art, there are millions of reproductions of it on T-shirts, mouse pads and other unlikely things. Even in Florence, there are two full-sized replicas: one stands in its original location in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, and a bronze replica towers over the city on the cathedral.

13. David was censored

In 1857, the Grand Duke of Tuscany was surprised by the stiffness of Queen Victoria of England, to whom he presented a copy of Michelangelo's statue. The queen was so shocked by the details of nudity that she ordered to cover up the dignity of David with a removable fig leaf made of plaster.

14. Tourists damage the statue

More than 8 million visitors a year come to the Academy of Arts gallery to see David. Research has shown that all of these visitors create vibration when walking, which damages the marble, causing cracks.

15. Who Owns David

David has been exhibited at the Florentine Academy of Fine Arts since 1873. But the Italian government is seeking to regain ownership of the statue by making it a national treasure.

Connoisseurs of contemporary art will surely be impressed.

Michelangelo's marble statue of David is one of the most famous and recognizable in the world, and it is enough to see this statue with your own eyes at least once to understand the reason for this popularity. It is difficult to convey all the greatness and beauty of this sculpture through photographs, it is difficult to understand the scale and grandeur of the work, and therefore, of course, even hundreds of shots will not replace one visit to the gallery, but individual photographs allow you to view the sculpture from a close distance, which is already more problematic to do in a museum.

The statue of David is made from a single piece of marble that was brought from the mines of Carrara, Italy. The block lay for a long time, awaiting its fate, gradually deteriorating due to the effects of precipitation, until finally it was recognized as suitable enough to create a statue. Michelangelo Buonarroti was 26 years old at the time he was contracted to carry out this order. The sculptor began work on September 13, 1501 and worked almost non-stop for two years.

At the beginning of 1504, the question arose of where to put such a grandiose creation. The customers were going to erect the statue near the cathedral church of Santa Maria del Fiore, but consultants, among whom was Leonardo da Vinci, persuaded to move David to the Lanzi loggia, where the city council met, in order to protect the statue from the negative effects of the forces of nature. David was only moved to his current position at the Academy of Fine Arts in 1873.

The first thing that amazes visitors to the Academy who came to see David is his size - the sculpture reaches a height of 5.17 meters. The weight of the statue is 5660 kg. The statue depicts a naked David in the moment before the fight with Goliath. Usually David was portrayed at the moment of triumph after the victory over the giant, and therefore Michelangelo's new approach was a kind of challenge to tradition. David is depicted as calm, focused, ready for a fight.

David is one of the most famous sculptures in the world, the work of the great Italian painter and sculptor (1475-1564).

Sculpture of david was performed in the period 1501-1504. The height of the marble statue is 5.17 m. It was first presented to the public on September 8, 1504 in Piazza della Signoria in front of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. The sculpture stood on this square until 1873, after which it was replaced with a copy. The original statue is currently at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence.

The statue depicts a naked Old Testament king David, who is preparing to fight Goliath. Young David, who became the king of Judah and Israel, entered into a duel with the huge warrior Goliath, who was a descendant of giants (Rephaim). David defeated Goliath with a sling, hitting his forehead with a stone, after which he chopped off his head. After this victory, the Israelite and Jewish troops drove the Philistines from their land. It was this Old Testament story that Michelangelo decided to immortalize in sculpture. Here David prepares for a fight with a warrior who surpasses him in strength, but in all appearance he completely remains calm. David's muscles are tense, and his eyebrows are pulled together, which gives the expression of his face something frightening, and suggests that no matter how formidable his opponent, David's strength of mind will break all obstacles. The hero threw a sling over his left shoulder.

It is interesting that Michelangelo departed from the then established rules for depicting heroes after defeating the enemy. If in the classical form of that time the heroes were presented in a solemn manner, when they had already won a victory, then Michelangelo made a certain innovation, depicting the hero before the fight. Thus, the sculpture combines two images at once. On the one hand, everyone knows about the outcome of this battle, and the sculpture looks solemn. On the other hand, David evokes a feeling of anticipation, a kind of intrigue of the outcome of events, as if that legendary battle had not yet passed, but had just begun.

It is also worth noting that the sculpture of Goliath is symbolic. In this image, Michelangelo depicted not only the Old Testament story, but also reflected the mood prevailing at that time. It is believed that by Goliath, with whom David must fight, here is meant the French king Charles VIII and the Roman Pope Alexander VI Borgia, who tried to capture the city. In this sense, “David” acts here as an image of a legendary defender who will emerge victorious even from an unequal duel.

Today Michelangelo Buonarroti's David is considered the pinnacle of the art of sculpture, as well as the greatest masterpiece of Renaissance art.

The statue of David, created by the outstanding Italian sculptor Michelangelo Buonarroti for more than five hundred years, amazes Italians and guests of Florence with its grandeur.

This statue made a name for its creator, who earned a generous payment for its months of creation. In a short time, the whole world was filled with duplicates, which broke the record for the number of copies issued. Today, the original building, carved out of white marble by Buonarroti's hands, can be seen in the museums of the Italian Academy of Fine Arts.

The statue became a symbol of freedom and strength for the Italian people, divided in the 15th century by internal conflicts and external wars.

Creation stories

The Renaissance, which gave the world a new look at the role of man in science and religion, combined the ancient vision, where the main character of the artistic line is man as the crown of nature. Therefore, the statue of David, having absorbed all these qualities, becomes its main ideal. It was created during the heyday of the Renaissance, changed craftsmen and location, suffered from nature and human ignorance, saw outstanding personalities of the past who remotely participated in its fate.

It all started in the mines of Carrara, where a marble block of enormous size was obtained. This event coincides with the desire of the wool merchants guild to install stone characters from the Old Testament around the central temple. They were entrusted with landscaping and decorating Santa Maria del Fiore, and they decided that the number of biblical statues should be equal to twelve, symbolizing the special attitude of the Florentine people to religion. As planned, all the figures should amaze with their scope, being created in large sizes. The resulting 6-meter material, of amazing dimensions, was from the first days intended for the second king of Israel.

David is an outstanding biblical character who, from an ordinary shepherd, overcame the difficult path to the throne. Having defeated the first warrior of the main enemy of the Israeli people, Goliath of Gath, in a difficult battle, he still carries a victorious spirit in his name. The guy is often depicted on historical monuments, and repeatedly became a central figure during the Renaissance. The young man was able to prove his involvement in the royal family with endurance and unshakable courage and is an important religious hero for many people from different faiths.

The statue "David" created in Florence by Michelangelo has an interesting history. Her path to the central place of the state square was thorny and winding. The main difficulty was resolving the issue with a master ready to create a masterpiece of this size. On the territory of the cathedral there were already two works commissioned by the guild, which were created by Donatello and his assistant Agostino di Duccio, so they became the first sculptors to evaluate the material and mentally create the future image. After the death of the master, his apprentice became the only candidate for the role of creator, but he also retired in 1466. The raw material falls into the hands of Simone of Fiesole; his small achievements in cutting the legs made Michelangelo's work much more difficult. With clumsy movements, he left irreparable marks on the ideal muscular body of a man and forever determined the pose of the hero. The sculptor managed to make a through hole between the king's legs and cut the marble with tools so that in some places the traces are still visible.

For several decades until the beginning of the 16th century, an abandoned giant block stood crumbling under the natural elements in an open area. Many talented individuals were offered to finish what they had begun, including the already recognized Leonardo da Vinci. In his old age, along with the others, he did not consider it necessary to deal with the completion of other people's shortcomings and saw the material that had been spoiled for forty years without protection from nature.

The five-meter statue of a young man, the ancient Israeli king David, amazes viewers even today, when the world is used to gigantic structures. However, a catchy glance is not able to appreciate the true skill of the artist. A sculptor who hews a block of marble of this size and transforms it into the proportions of an ideal human body must certainly have an excellent visual memory: after all, at any moment in time, only a small part of the whole figure is in front of his eyes.

It must be said that the artist needed to depict the figure of David as if in motion, using the classic dynamic pose - counterpost. At the same time, to enhance the artistic effect, Michelangelo resorted to distorting the real proportions of the body, even eliminated the "extra" muscles. What Michelangelo created almost alone is now being explored by scientists using technology and computer modeling. It is clear that Michelangelo's "David" is deservedly included among the most significant creations of human genius.

Many legends and anecdotes circulated about this figure during the life of the great master. Many of them are given in his biography by Vasari. For example, they said that the head of the Florentine Republic did not like the nose of "David", they say, too long, and he asked Michelangelo to shorten it; the sculptor pretended to shorten the nose, although in fact he did nothing; but this time the head of the republic said: "Now it's okay!" All this, of course, is a legend.

Another similar legend tells that a giant marble block, on which the previous sculptor worked, after his death was considered spoiled and was preparing to be discarded; Michelangelo allegedly bought it for nothing, and then surprised the world with the finished sculpture. But this story at least partially answers to reality: the statue, begun long before Michelangelo, called the Giant, actually stood idle for a long time - the masters who took on it died.

Chief among them was Duccio, Donatello's student; also Donatello himself had to take part in the creation of "David". Be that as it may, the great Florentines of the past were unable to complete their creation, leaving a pile of marble to soak in the rain in the square near the cathedral. But then the city authorities wished to continue work on the statue, for which they had previously invited a whole group of experts. Among these experts was Leonardo. They all found the lump fit for work. The creation of the work was entrusted to Michelangelo, who had already begun to gain fame in the republic.

Michelangelo himself said that he was literally at war with his statue: "David", they say, is armed with a sling, and I, Michelangelo, with a bow. It's all about the name of the sculptor, which in translation means "Archangel Michael". But there was also a rivalry with the legendary Israeli king in this work: David defeated Goliath with a sling, and the archangel Michael fought with Satan himself with a bow. Perhaps Michelangelo felt that both of them - he and his hero, each for his part, were fighting against the forces of evil.

In the modern era, starting from the 19th century, "David", like many other masterpieces of the Renaissance, has become the object of kitsch and commercial culture: numerous "copies" and "variations" of Michelangelo's masterpiece are created, photographs, paintings and graphic works that exploit the creation great master.

Religious or Civil Sculpture?

The Florentines appreciated the civic message of the sculpture "David" almost immediately. Therefore, only a few insisted that the statue remain near the cathedral: most people agreed that it be moved to the building where the government council sat.

The figure of David has long been associated among the Florentines with the independence and power of their republic. Before Michelangelo, the sculptural image of this young man was created by other great Florentine masters.

• One of them is Verrocchio's sculpture "David", for which, according to legend, Leonardo himself posed. This is a bronze statue, on the face of which a kind of half-smile plays, which Leonardo himself would later fall in love with.
• Another statue belongs to Donatello. It is already marble. In it, Donatello, who worked in two styles - "realistic" and "classical", came to a certain compromise, creating a work that was quite sublime and at the same time original, not copying antique statues.

All of Michelangelo's predecessors portrayed David triumphant after the battle. Michelangelo also brought a new iconographic image of the young man, depicting him preparing for battle. His expression is calm enough, but his muscles are tense. David is an example of a naked male body, radiating strength and power; only thinness and disproportionately large hands tell the viewer that we are just a young man.

In the twentieth century, the authorities of Jerusalem refused to accept a copy of the statue from the Florentines, since in the work of Michelangelo David is not circumcised, and indeed he is depicted as a young Italian of the 16th century.

If the paintings and sculptures of Michelangelo Buonarroti, with their predominantly civic message and realism, were generally favorably received by the high society of society - wealthy citizens, nobles and church leaders, then the work of his later namesake, Michelangelo Caravaggio, the public refused to accept, rejecting in every possible way: they said, for example, that the religious paintings of Caravaggio are not made according to church canons.

Caravaggio also strove for unrestrained realism, but his realism was not sublime: the artist seemed to reveal the most unsightly sides of reality. The sublime in Caravaggio is rather "low"; Thus, the public was particularly outraged by the painting in which the Evangelist Matthew is depicted in the guise of a peasant. It seems that people are tired of playing with realism, or they realized too quickly that reality is not quite the same as in the works of Renaissance masters. Caravaggio, who worked in the Baroque era, differed from his contemporaries not only in his relentless striving for realism, but also in a sharp opposition of light and shadow.

Video: Sculpture. Michelangelo's David