Was David so perfect?
If I read a reference to Michelangelo’s David as the image of perfection, I’ll scream. It came to a head recently when I read a book that had an image of the statue in the centre of a decadent nightclub. And it wasn’t the first time I’d read it in that context, either.
Don’t do it. Please. I put that book down and didn’t go back.
Warning – information ahead.
Michelangelo carved the “David” to be a representation of man against the world. It was done for the new Republic of Florence, a republic that didn’t actually last for very long, but it was the first republic in modern Europe. Michelangelo had seen the courts of Lorenzo de’ Medici, had been a member of the inner circle of that court, and had absorbed the neoplatonic teachings of people like Ficino and Pico della Mirandola with an eagerness only surpassed by the teachings of the mad monk, Savonarola, a few years later.
The “David” encapsulates the beliefs, refers back to the neoplatonism of his youth, the theory that Man was the centre of the universe (Man meaning Woman as well!) and everything revolves around him. It also shows a simple, honest peasant facing the aristocrats who ruled the known world at that time. David is a peasant boy with workman’s hands, larger than was strictly anatomically correct, and his face isn’t an idealised beauty, it’s a man. If we met him in the street, we’d recognise him.
What the “David” isn’t, is a sexual statue. Isn’t his weenie a bit – weeny for that? Well yes, it is. Michelangelo deliberately reduced the size of David’s genitals, because in this instance, he wasn’t interested in the sexual aspects of a naked man – well, no more than usual. Michelangelo was a homosexual and his preference was for young, beautiful men, everything he felt he was not.
After Torrigiano broke his nose and had to flee as far as England (where he worked for Henry VIII) to get away from the wrath of Michelangelo’s then patron, Lorenzo de’ Medici, Michelangelo became convinced that he was ugly.
By the way, the decision to shelter Torrigiano backfired on Henry later on, when he got a bit short of money. The Medici, known as the bankers of Europe, wouldn’t give him any money, so Henry had to turn to the Protestant side of Europe, the German merchants and the wealthy bankers in the Netherlands, and so Michelangelo could be seen, in a strange way, to be the instigator of the English Reformation.
Okay, before I’m terminally distracted, back to Mike and the “David.” For this simple, honest statue to be depicted in any kind of kinky environment is something that might not get the artist spinning in his grave. He’d find the nearest vampire, come back to life and come gunning for the person who’d travestied his work so badly. Michelangelo was completely honest and his anger was the terror of everyone, even the Pope, who used to have stand-up fights with him when he was painting the Sistine Chapel. Forget the awful film “The Agony and The Ecstasy,” the book of the same name that did its best to turn him into a heterosexual, go back to his letters and poems, and his own accounts of what he was doing and why. And please forget the “David” which is a hulking seventeen and a half feet of gangly youth, with a body which has yet to come into his prime. There are so many others you could use.
And while I’m on the subject, “face of a Greek god” informs me that the face is bland, featureless and boringly perfect. The statues of Greek gods show a homogeneous face that is devoid of expression. Deliberately. Those statues represented an ideal. Not until the Laocoon was uncovered in the sixteenth century (and guess who was there when it was being dug up – none other but our friend Michelangelo Buonarotti) was a statue uncovered that actually had an expression on his face, and the Laocoon is a Roman copy of a lost Greek bronze, so who knows who put that agonised expression on the father’s face and why. I don’t want my heroes to look boring and bland. I get what the authors are going for, but it’s a cliché, and it’s lazy writing, for the most part. Tell us which statue and why. Make us go on the Internet and see what you’re talking about.
If you want to use a Renaissance statue in that context, the perfect example is the masterpiece by Donatello. Yes, another “David.” But this David has a knowing smile on his face. Done for the Medicis (who else?) this David is a small bronze, a private commission and a frank celebration of a beautiful youth.
Sometimes you think every notable Renaissance artist was gay, and then you discover Raphael and Titian. No, perhaps they weren’t. But Donatello’s “David” is perfect in this context. He’s beautiful, as gorgeous as Michelangelo’s, but this David knows what being naked means. He isn’t naked, open and honest, like Michelangelo’s figure, he’s nude and he knows exactly what you all are looking at. And it ain’t his feet.
Or how about the carvings done by Bernini? Almost explicitly sexual, his ostensibly mythological themes barely cover a prurience and hint at a kink that reveals the dark side of the man who designed the modern Vatican City, and designed most of the fountains of Rome.
Go for it, talk about them instead!
Lynne – great post! I’m amused and can’t help but think if it was supposed to be a decadent (and naughty?) nightclub, some frescoes would’ve been a much better choice -or a fountain, statue of Priapus, something.
😛 Also – I was going to leave it at only the following inane comment… Laocoön had good reason to be agonized, no? 😉
I still don’t care much for Donatello’s “David”, but I do love Bernini.
Donatello’s David is still too feminine if I’m talking het hero. Now in an m/m setting…
Good post!
And while I’m on the subject, “face of a Greek god” informs me that the face is bland, featureless and boringly perfect. The statues of Greek gods show a homogenous face that is devoid of expression. Deliberately.
I don’t agree with this, because when someone says “face of a Greek god” they’re not talking about statues. They’re talking about the gods themselves, and most readers, most people, think of the gods as uber-beautiful, attractive people.
I think the homogeneous face on the statues is actually quite clever, because it doesn’t (didn’t) interfere with the fantasy of what someone might consider as ultimately beautiful.
But there’s no reason for anyone to assume that someone using the term “face of a Greek god” is referring to a statue(s) versus the fantasy ideal of what they *may* look like.
I do get your point, Angela, but I’ve read it so much recently that it’s becoming lazy writing.
And in any case, I’d like to know which god. Hephaestos, maybe? Or Janus (yes, I know he was Roman, but still a god in the Graeco-Roman pantheon)? Not all gods had beautiful faces. I could accept Apollo, maybe Hermes, but not Zeus, unless the person in question had a beard, or one of the less handsome ones.
And limecello – oh yes, Laocoon was truly anguished. But he brought it on himself (and his sons)!
Jeanne – yes, Donatello’s David is deliberately effeminate, but he is a knowing nude, not a naked-as-nature-intended god.
Actually, I’d go for Cupid in that gorgeous Cupid and Psyche sculpture in the Louvre – even including Rodin’s “The Kiss,” that’s probably the most romantic sculpture I’ve ever seen.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_NccXvj7HJe4/R_GZRJhiFgI/AAAAAAAAAlk/q8qQQd_5tQ8/img034.jpg
He’s breathing the breath of life into her. Sigh.
Here too.
Lynne – you think? I haven’t studied classics in a few years, but I thought all he did was try to warn his people/the Trojans about the horse – and Neptune/Minerva depending on version/text sent the serpents to end him.
Seems unfair – but hey.
Also – wasn’t Zeus handsome? [Not sure when/why/how he acquired the beard …] either way he was quite uh, active.
Yes, he was handsome, women fell at his feet, but he had a beard. Always, it was one of his characteristics. Like Poseidon and Hades and Aires (why is he suddenly Ares?) Hermes, Apollo and a few others were never depicted with beards, which probably makes them more suitable. Maybe Bacchus, too. I’ve used him in a book, and he became a fascinating character the more I learned about him. The god of wine and madness. And he knew how to throw a good orgy!
Bernini – amazing sculptor, and his sculptures are pretty twisted, much better for an erotic artist to use as a model.
I’m by no means an expert on mythology, just get by with what I learned at school and in Bullfinch but “face of a Greek god” means nothing to me, because there were so many, with so many different characteristics. How about using the Belvedere Apollo instead? Lovely statue, gorgeous body and surely he’s well known as well.
Laocoon broke his word to the gods, so he and his sons got it. Shame about the sons, they did nothing, but the gods wanted to wipe out his line. That statue is incredible.
Is it bad I thought X-files when I saw this?
Yes I suck 😉
Lynne – I love Bullfinch’s! I took an intro to myth class in college [haha, for an easy A – really it was unfair of me] – but all of us were so surprised that wasn’t one of our required books.
I like Bacchus a lot – his whole story – maybe not his followers, and it’s so sweet how he fell for Ariadne.
Lynn,
As a world history teacher I love this! Thanks so much.
Elaine Cantrell
http://www.elainepcantrell.blogspot.com
Ah, and now it all makes sense. I didn’t know the history of Mike’s David so when I first saw it I remember thinking ‘this is male beauty!?’ I still cringe whenever I read the comparison but I keep telling myself maybe they mean his face cause everything else ain’t that worthy 😉
CindyS