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| David by Michaelangelo. This titanic feat IS the story of David and Goliath itself: the power of creativity against a huge block of marble |
Mythical and biblical: ways that Michelangelo fought his own Goliath
But it was on entering the Accademia Gallery, I saw, for real, myself, David, right before my eyes.
First thing to hit you is its size. My god, he is a giant! And in wonder you think, how could another human being, just like me, get to do something that size? I'd seen Buddhas much bigger, but here was a man whose body, also in a state of grace, also someone just 'being' - walking, contropposto, living in the moment but he was easily 20 ft and you marvel how he's stayed upright these last 500 years?
Gobsmacked, I just bask in this wonder, and I'm not the only tourist to stand with my mouth hanging open. As if to bath and sooth the shock, people seemed to have a reflex to click their camera."No photo!" snapped the Italian guards. He was standing on this plinth that's as high as a 6ft man too. Poor Donatello's David looked like a squirt. Michaelangelo's David had such an uprightness to him, allowing his natural beauty and confidence growing upright, like a huge blooming flower, grown for us to see. It was as if he was in the throes of rubbing his back with a towel, only it was a sling. He was in the throes of beauty - living in the moment, when innocence makes us perfect and graceful and easy.
He walked a step forward, his arms, chest, thighs, calves and even his wrists, carved to perfect form, with even a vein meandering its way over the crest of his wrist, right to the knuckles. The marble was white-grey and soapy-smooth, the hands large, strong, but so gentle, like Edward Scissorhand's hands, capable of destruction, but arriving at love and beauty.
The tiny tourists looked up gawping, as if at their own body, as if marveling. They were like ants looking at the queen ant, at the director of their mission: directing them to tap their potential. 'Look at what can be done' David stood saying. He was a dream come true: a vision materialized.
For the church to commission him seemed at first bizarre, because he was so beautiful, so sexy.. like a fashion model on the Paris catwalks. Here was a totally gorgeous man, why had the church funded it? I mean, he was so fit. The muscles in his legs were firm, ripe, healthy. He had a look of grace on his face, no vanity, just perfect humility. His chest was perfectly sculpted and his balance and co-ordination perfect: in fact there was an equilibrium in his body that revealed a psyche contained peacefully, with all the creative forces of the universes, putting them in balance, and with joy we see the results reaped from perfect equilibrium. Beauty and balance and grace!
There was also something wonderful in the male body of David, that for a moment you wondered if a part of the Renaissance church really understood that, heterosexual or homosexual, divine love has no prejudices, and that it has the kindness, love and evolved understanding to realize that loving is the production of this man in his total beauty.
But then of course you realize that he's from the bible story of David and Goliath, where David bravely went to fight the monster Goliath. He was just a young boy, but because he followed God's will bravely, god joined him and helped him in the battle. With God's help, David conquered what seemed impossible to conquer. And here it was! There had been two sculptors before Michaelangelo to try and conquer this massive piece of stone. Agostina in 1464, who began the legs, feet and torso, then Rossellino. Both had given up. The block of marble was left in the atelier for 25 years, neglected. Then Michaelangelo was give the monster sized stone. He took on the challenge, chiseling away for two whole years. With persistence, effort and patience, he stuck on at this Goliath stone, and look how he conquered it! Standing before us is a living example of how the story is proof. David is substantial, proof of all those things we wish for. The man has Grecian beauty, ringlets of thick, coiling, healthy hair, a man in his prime.
Here was a sculptor on his righteous path. Michaelangelo was only 26 years old. He had willfully studied his classical past, the Greek and Roman artists, emulating them and outshining them, and now as the years went on, he refused to take the trade 'sculptor' and even be paid for his work! He told people that he worked for God.
It took him two years to do David, and when it was finished they took four days to move it half a mile to the Palazzo Vecchio, where it stood, in defense of civil liberties, its eyes looking at Rome, defiantly eying all hegemony and Medici power. Michaelangelo had found the heart of his desire and this straight route to his love had led him. The statue is bravery in solid form, produced in alliance with the great creator.
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