Michelangelo's and Bernini's David: Renaissance and Baroque contrasts

Renaissance and Baroque

An Analysis of Two Davids

The humanism, nobility, and power of the Renaissance are reflected in Michelangelo's David (1504). The emphasis on drama, movement, and action is demonstrated in Bernini's David (1624). Both emphasize the heroic and favorite themes of the High Renaissance, but it is Vasari who gives the greatest compliment to Michelangelo's David, calling it more excellent than all sculpture of ancient Greece and Rome and even contemporary works (Vasari, 1998, p. 424). This paper will analyze the two works and the eras of art that produced them.

Bernini's David and Michelangelo's

In the case with Bernini's David, which features a much more dynamic and swirling figure than the composition created by the great sculptor Michelangelo a century prior, one can see the influence of the fighting charisma of the Church as it opposed the Protestant position in both physical and theological warfare. The counter-Reformation had gotten underway with the Council of Trent in the mid-16th century and the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) had already become famous throughout Europe (and the world) for their missionary activity. The full-on force of Catholic strategy was in position to put down the Protestant rebellions in northern Germany (even if Richelieu in France was conniving against the Church in favor of dynastic politics). Bernini's David reflects the activity and resurgence of Catholic fervor that had been stifled somewhat by the humanism of the High Renaissance: the figure is frozen in mid-strike, his sling about to unleash the death-blow on the Gentile Giant. The face of the future King of the Jews is concentrated, focused, with all of his energy consumed in overcoming the threat against the kingdom. Bernini's David is a replica of counter-Reformation sentiment, poised to strike and root out the heresy that was dividing Christendom, just as Goliath once threatened to divide and conquer the Jews.

Michelangelo's David, on the other hand, is poised for a different reason. His poise is introverted: his hip is thrust one way and his shoulders in the opposite direction. He is thoughtful, brooding, full of ability, calm, and confidence: he is self-possessed but evocatively drawing attention to the greatness of his own human physique. Michelangelo's David is an homage to what the artist considered to be the greatest of God's creations: man (Johnson, p. 281)

Other artists of the High Renaissance veered more toward creating stunning settings for portraits (such as Leonardo) and Raphael crafted works that incorporated landscape and design into his paintings. Michelangelo, however, had no interest in landscape paintings. The Sistine Chapel reveals the artist's taste: he was interested in the human figure and its relation to the divine. For Michelangelo, the human person was made in the image and likeness of God Himself -- thus, portraying the human person in its highest degree of perfection and glory was what he attempted to do.

This attempt is best seen in his towering David, a masterpiece in marble of grace, elegance, poise, confidence, ease, stature, and idealism. The Renaissance was filled with ideals -- humanistic ideals that, in a way, helped spread Protestant ideals.

For that reason, the Baroque took more to realism. Bernini's David reflects this tendency in the art world of the 17th century. No longer is David an object of near adoration: now he is an actual person, frozen in time -- in mid-action, in fact. Gone is the perfect form, the ideal body, the emphasis on revealing all there is to know about the human physique. Bernini's David is an effort of the Baroque to bring to life the very person of history: he is before us, no longer separate from us on a higher plane (like Michelangelo's David, styled in the characteristic Renaissance pyramid structure); Bernini's David is diagonal in line, fluid, motive, alive, and real (Bernini's David, n.d.): he is a reminder for a modern world that was coming to embrace the unreal ideals of humanism that reality is more human than humanism.

Conclusion

As the term Baroque itself implies ("a pearl of irregular form"), the art of that period was driven to reflect human nature not in an idealized way but in a way that was true, with all its imperfections (Palmisano, n.d.). If the Renaissance had attempted to seek perfection through art, the Baroque was there to retrieve reality through art -- but not only that: it was to make it beautiful and ornate at the same time.

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