Next time you are visiting Florence, make sure you stop at the Galleria dell' Accademia, and see the statue everyone knows about and talks about. We are talking about, of course, the statue of David by Michelangelo.
Now, it needs to be remarked that you are not supposed to take pictures of the art forms in the Accademia Gallery due to “copyright Laws” so the purchasing of postcards and photographs from the gift shops is encouraged. Strangely enough, these same laws are not enforced in Rome; the oly restriction is on the use of flash cameras near the artwork. As a side note, I ought to point out that niether Papi Silvio or Rome send Florence the required funding for the maintenance, not to mention restoration, of the breathtaking churches and artwork, so paying a couple of euro for a postcard is a small price for the servicing of these treasures.
The statue of David by Michelangelo did not always grace the floor of the Galleria dell' Accademia; originally it was displayed at the Piazza della Signoria. In 1873 it was taken out and replaced by a replica, which even though not the original, remains a wonderful piece of art and truly worth your time to view. You will also have no “copyright” restriction because it's a replica so it's possible to take plenty of pictures.
The checkered history of David by Michelangelo
The Old Testaments, King David, may or may not have been a distant ancestor of Jesus Christ (dependant upon your individual beliefs and interpretations) but his origins and epic journey to ultimate greatness were far from being easy. Comparable is the story of the great Michelangelo's Masterpiece, David.
From simple beginnings there came a King
We must remember that David was chiselled out of a single block of marble and stands at 5.17 meters or 17 feet in height making the original block of marble huge and very expensive. This large slab of rock originated from a quarry in Tuscany (Carrara), forty year before Michelangelo even receiving the commission or envisioning his masterpiece.
Agostino di Duccio, an assistant to Donatello, was the very first to receive the commission . Much to his credit, Di Duccio did imagine his own version of the statue of David in the blank marble block, but this David was never destined to become a reality. After 2 short years di Duccio abandoned the sculpture proclaiming the marble to be much too difficult and time consuming to work with.
Discovering David by Michelangelo
The partially sculpted stone, sat gathering dust until the year 1474. An artist by the name of Antonio Rossellino was the next in line to cut his marks in the great stone. It seems as though the stone was destined for only one master to complete and after only a couple of months, Rossellino stopped work on the sculpture laying blame on the marble's intractability amongst other things.
By this time, the once great marble block had been cut and chiseled in accordance with the visions of earlier artists. To many, this block was now completely ruined and unusable Destined to be broken up and used as smaller marble pieces.
As they say, "it is always darkest before the dawn" and in 1501 the abandoned piece marble stone was given to a twenty six year old assistant sculptor. This assistant sculptor went by the name of Michelangelo. Through his eyes, Michelangelo could see what the stone needed to be and not what the artist desired it to be. In a broad announcement he confidently declared that he would complete the sculpture without drastically cutting it down or adding new pieces to it.
Michelangelo's David was born
After a period of 3 years, Michelangelo opened his doors and anounced the final completion of what we now consider to be one of the world's greatest scupltures.. From it's staggered beginnings, Michelangelo's David had been uncovered. Contempories of the time were so impressed that they gave David a prominant place of high honor standing at the to the Palazzo Vecchio.
For close to 350 years, David proudly stood in that place of honor on full display to the public and at the mercy of the elements. It wasn't until 1873 that David was relocated to the Accademia Gallery .
Article Directory : http://www.articlecube.com
