Statue of David

What you are looking at

The photograph is a close view of David's head, and it shows what the full statue can hide from a visitor standing far below. The brows are drawn together and the forehead is creased in a frown. The eyes, with their deeply drilled pupils, look hard to the left, toward the enemy. The nostrils flare slightly and the lips are closed. Thick curls are carved deeply enough to throw real shadows, and at the lower left of the image you can see his left hand at his shoulder, holding the sling.

Michelangelo shows David before the fight, not after it. Earlier Florentine Davids, including Donatello's famous bronze, stand over Goliath's severed head in triumph. Here there is no head: the giant has not yet been met, and the tension is in the waiting.

How it was made

The statue was carved from a single tall block of Carrara marble that had been quarried decades earlier for the cathedral of Florence. Agostino di Duccio began work on it in 1464, and Antonio Rossellino took it up again in 1476; both abandoned it. The partly worked block lay in the cathedral workshop until 1501, when the cathedral authorities gave the commission to Michelangelo, then 26. He worked on it until early 1504.

The result is 517 centimeters tall. A committee of artists that included Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli debated where to put it, and it was set up outside the Palazzo della Signoria, the seat of government, and unveiled in September 1504. Contemporary accounts describe the move from the workshop as taking several days.

Looking closely

The pose is a classical contrapposto: weight on the right leg, the left relaxed, hips and shoulders tilted against each other. The right hand, hanging at the side and holding a stone, is noticeably oversized, as is the head. Many scholars think these proportions were calculated for a statue meant to be seen from below and at a distance, high on the cathedral, though that is debated.

Meaning

In Florence, David became a political emblem: the small, watchful republic standing up to larger powers, placed in front of its town hall. The figure also draws on ancient sculpture of the nude male body, which Michelangelo studied closely, joining biblical subject and classical form.

Where is the Statue of David today?

In 1873 the statue was moved indoors to protect it from the weather, to a specially built tribune in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence, where it remains. A marble copy has stood in its original place in front of the Palazzo Vecchio since 1910. The statue has been damaged over the centuries: its left arm was broken in 1527 during unrest in the city, and in 1991 an attacker struck a toe with a hammer.

See more of the artist's work in the Sistine Chapel ceiling, The Creation of Adam and the Pietà, or browse famous sculptures.