Thread by @culturaltutor

Michelangelo's David was unveiled on this day in 1504.

For 418 years it has been one of the most famous statues in the world.

But why? What's so special about David?

The first thing to mention is that David was immediately considered a masterpiece.

Giorgio Vasari, a 16th century art critic & biographer, said that it "surpassed all ancient and modern statues, whether Greek or Roman, that have ever existed."

Here's the story of David.

It was originally commissioned in 1464 as one of twelve statues representing figures from the Old Testament to adorn the recently completed Florence Cathedral.

Gothic was dead in Florence; the Renaissance was rising.

Italian sculptors, like the Romans before them, got their marble from a quarry in Carrara, northern Italy. It produced pure white marble of high quality and great strength.

For this commission they quarried one of the largest single blocks of Carrara marble ever produced.

The original sculptor was Agostino, but he had barely even started before he became distanced from the project.

Another sculptor was commissioned ten years later, but he soon gave up.

This huge and expensive block of half-sculpted marble would stand untouched for 26 years.

Colloquially referred to as 'the Giant', in 1501 the Florentine authorities decided it simply *had* to be finished.

Leonardo da Vinci was asked, but ultimately it was a young, upcoming, and ambitious artist who received the commission...

He went by the name of Michelangelo Buonarotti, and he had already sculpted the Pieta in 1499 at the mind-bogglingly young age of just 24.

So he seemed like a worthy candidate to take on this infamous project.

The 26 year old Michelangelo got to work in September of 1501. It would take him a little under three years to finish.

When it was completed, the authorities realised they couldn't haul this six-stone statue to the top of the cathedral. They had to find another location...

A committee was set up, including Leonardo and Botticelli, who hotly debated where it should go.

They decided on the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence's town hall.

That's where it stood until 1873, when it was moved to its present location, the Galleria dell'Accademmia.

So here's the first thing about David: he is simply colossal.

You can't really tell from pictures, but the statue is 17 feet tall!

This has something to do with its fame. Anybody who sees it can't help but be struck by the sheer scale of this figure.

The fact that David was supposed to go on the roof of the cathedral explains its size.

And its unusual proportions. The head, when viewed from the same level as the statue, is strangely large.

It was *supposed* to be viewed from below.

It's not just David's scale that makes him remarkable, but his lifelike qualities too.

This comes to a large extent from the anatomical accuracy of his every muscle, limb, sinew, and vein.

And yet David is more than lifelike. He is idealised.

This built on the work and ideas of the great sculptors of Ancient Greece, where the "heroic nude male" was a feature of their art.

It was heightened realism; an ideal vision of what human beauty could be.

And yet David depicts a figure from the Old Testament, a giant of Christian and Jewish religion.

This marks something fascinating about the Renaissance; its union of the classical and the Medieval, of Athens and Jerusalem.

David epitomises the Renaissance.

There had been statues of David before, including one by the great Donatello.

But when we put them alongside one another, Michelangelo's David stands out. Its simplicity is a big part of that, I think.

There is nothing extraneous. It is pure, harmonious, and elegant.

What's interesting is that many sculptures and paintings of David depicted him with Goliath's head at his feet, or at least in the middle of firing his sling.

Not Michelangelo's David. This is *before* he fought Goliath. He is poised and ready for action.

Indeed, David had become something of a symbol for Florence itself.

Because Florence saw itself as David, while Rome was Goliath.

It's no coincidence that David's intense gaze is actually directed towards Rome.

About that gaze... the Renaissance masters had paid close attention to human anatomy.

They believed it was important for artists to understand muscles if they were to express real, natural emotion.

David's face is convincing: tense, nervous, alert, resolute, determined.

David is also the supreme example of contrapposto, which is where a figure places their weight mainly on one foot, therefore altering the body's whole pose.

Compare him to a statue without contrapposto and you'll see what a difference it makes to how *alive* a sculpture looks.

All these things taken together make David a uniquely captivating sculpture:

Its monumentality and intensity of expression, its lifelike yet idealised appearance, its extraordinary beauty and technical mastery, its embodiment of the Renaissance.

There's nothing *quite* like it.

But the mark of truly great art is that it stays with you.

And from his first unveiling outside Florence's town hall in 1504, 418 years ago today, until the 21st century, David has stayed with people.

He is greater than the sum of his parts.

And so, great art doesn't need to be explained to be understood, admired, or enjoyed.

And, if you don't like David, that's nobody else's business.

But David is *so* famous that sharing his story has perhaps been helpful in explaining why.