Michelangelo, Donatello, Bernini, Rembrandt, Currin, Peyton

David / Rembrandt

Michelangelo's David was commissioned as a public monument by the government of Florence. In this context we might be invited to imagine David as a symbol of Florence itself: the Tuscan city is tiny compared with Rome, and in Michelangelo's lifetime Florence was also much smaller than the closer Italian city of Venice. Although Florence is the larger city in the twenty-first century, this was not true in Michelangelo's day. The population of Florence was estimated at 37,000 in 1427 and 60,000 in 1552: while Venice had a population of 180,000 in 1490. (Sources: John Najemy, A History of Florence 1200-1575; J.J. Norich, A History of Venice.) In other words, the idea of a physically-unprepossessing hero favored by God to defeat a much larger enemy -- the story of David and Goliath -- might very well have appealed to Florentines as a civic symbol of themselves. Florence already had reason to think itself an astonishing powerhouse of culture disproportionate to its size: Dante Alighieri was from Florence, as were Petrarch and Boccaccio.

In any case, the notion of Florence as a heroic underdog destined by God to conquer much larger rivals is presumably what prompted the choice of David as a subject -- the only puzzle, in this case, is the utterly massive size of Michelangelo's sculpture. This is presumably the reason why Goliath is not depicted at all. This is in contrast to Donatello's earlier David, which Michelangelo would have known, and which provides an interesting influence and counterpoint to Michelangelo's more famous David. Donatello's David, cast in bronze, was the first freestanding sculptural depiction of a male nude since ancient Rome -- Michelangelo's David could not have been naked as he is if Donatello's had not been presented that way first. But beyond that, the difference between the two is vast: Donatello's David is lithe and boyish, the sword in his right hand looks too heavy for him to lift, and the head of the giant Goliath beneath his left foot serves even further to shrink him. Even if both Donatello and Michelangelo give David a somewhat insouciant pose -- perhaps each sculptor's way of demonstrating that the story of David is a story of being specifically beloved by God, in addition to a lesson about missile weaponry as a tactical advantage in asymmetrical hand-to-hand combat -- Michelangelo's is at least heroically insouciant. Donatello's David, by contrast, has his stone-throwing left hand cocked insouciantly at his hip -- but it only serves to emphasize how muscular and unfeminine his left arm is. Nothing could be further from Michelangelo's sinewy musculature. Michelangelo's David is toned and tight: Donatello's is, to use twenty-first century slang, skinnyfat. The hips and stomach are downright feminine.