The David is the greatest sculpture ever made by a human being. And, in case you didn’t know, it was sculpted by Michelangelo. After this piece (and this is my opinion), everything else is kind of a detail. Important, but less amazing.
Let me just start by telling you that it’s HUGE– not just talk, but thick and masculine and the details in the marble (particularly the muscles and the knees) and shocking, to say the least. When Michelangelo made The David, he was young. At the age of 13 he was working in a workshop and Lorenzo the Magnificent saw him and invited him to his house. In that moment, he goes from a boy who’s working on different sculptures (as an amateur) to a person who’s completely involved in big projects. He leaves Florence and goes to Rome to work on the Pietà, which establishes him as an artist. He then starts working on the David for years, who’s eyes now aim toward Rome.
Michelangelo thought he was doing God’s work so he believes that the sculpture already exists inside the marble and it’s his job to take the excess marble away and reveal His work.
Interestingly enough, Michelangelo had a commission to do a tomb with, roughly, 20 large-scale sculptures, but it never went through and, now, they’re unfinished. In fact, there’s a lot of unfinished sculptures that are still preserved today.
Furthermore, in the Middle Ages, man disappeared. It was all about idealism and things that aren’t of this world. In the classical world, man is the center of the experience and, in the Renaissance, that returns. The interesting part about this is that, as you walk through the hallway leading to the David, you see Michelangelo’s unfinished work. You see man trying to emerge — but he’s trapped in all these unfinished sculptures. Then, in The David, man comes out. In the most perfect way.
There is no treated work of art that embodies high Renaissance and the ideas of the Renaissance like The David does. It was a work meant to inspire greatness, a quintessential expression meant to show that you can do great things. In essence, The David represents your dreams and says that your greatest dreams, even though they’re hard and seem impossible, can be accomplished. As my professor said today, “the danger lies not in setting your mark low and achieving it but in setting your mark high and trying to achieve it”. And Michelangelo does this and transmits this belief in his piece. Personally, The David speaks to me. It tells me that greatness is not just a myth, that you can be a human, a person who isn’t perfect and makes mistakes, and yet still achieve greatness. And you can do it in this city. You can do it right from where you live. It’s specially interesting that it’s in Florence because I’m completely in love with the people and the culture and the scenery and everything — so it also gives me this feeling of being able to do grand things in this city. That, essentially, here I can do everything and anything is possible.
After The David we went to the Medici chapel (which was great and I strongly recommend you visit it).
And, of course, I stopped by Santa Croce — the church that almost all the important personas are buried in. Michelangelo. Galileo. Machiavelli. And so many other people.
In Michelangelo’s tomb, I thought a lot about my last two weeks in Italy — more specifically in Florence. In essence, I got a real perspective about WHERE I really am — kind of like I got in Rome — because there’s so much history here. I stood where he stood as a kid, I stood where he stood when he got inspired by Donatello’s work, I saw his sculpting process and his unfinished works, I saw his greatest masterpiece in The David, I saw his greatest paintings in the Sistine Chapel and — now — I’m seeing where his life ended. I’m standing in his tomb, where his body lies. The body of a person who’s had so much influence in art, religion and history. A person who has influenced a large part of our lives. And it’s the most amazing feeling in the world because, as I type this, I’m looking up and seeing his coffin.
And, to me, this just goes to show that, even if you’re dead, your impact in the world can last forever. Even if your skeleton is rotting — or has already rotted — your influence and your character and your faith and passions will live on forever. It’s not really about WHAT you do, but HOW you do it.
And, for this eye-opening experience, I thank Michelangelo and his David.