Hello everyone, I'm Chris. Hey, and I'm Saul. And today we'll be looking at two sculptures by really Renaissance rock stars Donatello and Michelangelo. Now the piece of art that we're looking at here is Donatello's Bronze David.
This was sculpted in 1430. Now, this is a very interesting piece of art because it was the first bronze sculpture since the classic times as well as the first freestanding nude male sculpture. Now, Donatello was one of the founding fathers of art. And upcoming, he was very odd, very weird, and pretty strange.
He would smash his work when he didn't like it. And people kind of saw him as an odd fellow. However, the Medici family stood up for him. And they were considered outsiders themselves. We can see that Donatello...
put a lot of movement and motion into the sculpture. As we can see, the left wrist and arm of David is resting on his left hip, which kind of flings out his elbow. And then we can see his left knee is slightly bent over Goliath's head and his right leg is stiff. And as we look at the sculpture, David, and look at his face, he's a lot younger and very youthful. Now, there's also something interesting here with the...
The sword and the rock. Now, what do you think about that and what it's representing? Totally. That's a great observation.
We can tell that Donatello had a message, I think, in this sculpture, the sword and the rock, symbolizing almost the people of Florence and the Duke of Milan. Now, we know that there was some war against those two, and I think that the story of David coming up as the little guy overcoming the big guy, beating all odds, really portrayed that story. So we can see that obviously the sword is a superior weapon symbolizing the Duke of Milan and the rock.
Kind of, you know, not as a big weapon or a major weapon of choice. Kind of a primitive weapon. Exactly, exactly. Like the people of Florence, the rock really symbolizes the common folk and those people.
And how I think Donatello portrays how they overcame. Now this sculpture is very, very realistic as well. There's some certain details in there that really show that. Yes, exactly. If we can look at.
Goliath's head. It just looks so real. The facial expressions that are portrayed here as well as the beard and the lines and the curvature down there as well. It's just it's really realistic and also if we look at the sword you can see that there's actually notches on the sharp side of the sword which kind of shows that this sword has been through battle.
It shows Donatello's very detailed perspective to his artwork. Now this sculpture resides in the National Museum in Florence where it is frequently visited by people all over the world. Now here we have the sculpture of David by Michelangelo. While Michelangelo is most often known for painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he thought of himself more of a sculptor than a painter.
He thought it gave him the almost divine ability to create something out of a solid block of stone. In fact, the giant piece of marble that this was carved from was nicknamed the Giant, and David in this figure himself is 14 feet 3 inches tall. and with the pedestal below it he is 26 feet up in the air, which is an absolutely imposing, majestic figure. This sculpture really exudes power and fearlessness and determination, which represented the Florentines'view of themselves as kind of a commemoration of Florence's connection to the story of David and Goliath.
This sculpture has a very classical look and feel to it. It's almost identical to some of the classical Greek and Roman sculptures. Michelangelo also used the classical style of contrapposto in here. It gives the figure a lot of movement. Yes, it does.
As we saw earlier with Donatello's David, this David here has a lot of movement, especially with that left foot kind of arched up and also that left arm up right around his shoulder. You can just see a lot of movement. It's very beautiful.
David's positioning in this sculpture also shows a lot of tension. He looks like... He's spring-loaded like a cat ready to pounce on Goliath.
It's really apparent that he's not focusing on something real close. He's focusing on something that's far away. And that shifts the viewer's perspective from David himself to possibly another being in the situation. And of course, we know that that's Goliath.
That takes the focus from this sculpture away from being inward to being almost transcendent. Which raises the question, can the focal point in a work of art not actually be part of the physical art itself? It depends on the situation, but when we look at this sculpture of David, we're drawn to where his eyes are looking. Yeah, totally. We want to look where he's looking.
Yeah, it almost gets the audience or the viewer very curious as to where David's looking at, and I think that kind of draws a lot of attention to this art as to what is he looking at, and there's a lot of room for interpretation for that, which I think is, you know, very interesting. Now let's talk about the differences and similarities between the two Davids. Earlier we mentioned the contrapposto that both Davids show. You can see a lot of movement and motion within the extremities and the core and the torso of both Davids.
But some of the differences are pretty obvious. I mean, we can see the physicality of both Davids here in Michelangelo's. It's very masculine, very muscular and huge, you know, a lot older as well.
This David is a lot more fierce and just someone who's ready to go into battle. Now we can see Donatello's David, which is just like a young boy and someone who maybe has never fought in his life, which shows a little more of a realistic view of the story of David and Goliath. Besides just their appearances as well, we have a large difference in physical size.
The David by Michelangelo is just about 14 feet tall from head to toe, while Donatello's David is just about five feet tall. Yeah, but I think without a question that Donatello's David is just way better. I mean, there's no way. The David by Donatello is almost a little boyish. It looks weak compared to the one by Michelangelo.
I mean, come on, Donatello's David, he's holding a sword in one hand, and then he's got Goliath's head at his feet. Michelangelo's David doesn't have any clothes on. Well, Donatello's doesn't either.
Dude, look at that hat, though. No question. Guess we have to agree to disagree, huh?
Alright.