Magnifico!

In a string of "Hmph, that's pretty gosh darned incredible!" posts of late, I stumbled across a set of trivia bullets about Michelangelo's David that completely blew my feeble mind! Like a previous post (CLICK) about some profound sculpturing talent, the 10 items listed below make some astounding claims that are so overwhelming, they have to be true!

Not from the same author, but supporting the truth of the statements, the following "facts" about Michelangelo's brilliance simply stagger the imagination. I cannot, for the life of me, remember where I first saw these little tidbits, so my apologies to the original author, but you should know that I truly appreciate your efforts to educate the planet about outliers like Michelangelo.

The statue of David may well be the most perfect work of art ever created - yet it was carved from a rejected block of stone. Here are 10 reasons why "David" is so astonishing (CLICK).

1. The colossal figure is 17 feet tall, equivalent to a 2-story building. It was carved from one enormous block of Carrara marble.

You can get a better understanding of the statue's magnitude when you compare the people below pictured standing in front of it. While I know nothing of the art of sculpturing, working with a piece of marble that large is incredible enough. 

2. The block it was hewn from was damaged. Two sculptors were tasked with the commission before Michelangelo took over, but neither could successfully work the low-quality stone provided.

Okay, it's not enough that he created this from a flawed hunk of stone, but he also 'inherited' the feeble attempts of two others who couldn't get the job done. Wowsers! 

3. David's form accounted for the limitations of the stone. He is slim in figure and his head is pointed to the side - because the block was too narrow for him to face forward. His contrapposto poise accounted for a hole that already existed in the marble between the legs.

You read that correctly. Not only was Michelangelo working in a challenging scale, the imperfections in the marble profoundly influenced the final outcome. The brilliance required to make subtle alterations to accommodate those imperfections is ridiculous.

4. Michelangelo was only 26 when he started it and 28 when he finished. He was already one of the finest sculptors alive at that point, having completed the "Pietà" to the total disbelief of Rome when he was 24.

5. It was originally meant to sit atop the Florence Cathedral roofline. When it was complete, it was simply too beautiful, and large, to be hoisted up there, and was instead displayed at the Palazzo della Signoria.

6. Modern studies have found it to be anatomically perfect, except for one tiny muscle missing in the back. Michelangelo, who studied anatomy scrupulously, was aware of this - he later wrote that he was limited by a defect in the marble.

Wait ... what?? Michelangelo achieved near absolute perfection despite consciously leaving out a small detail in an accommodation for the marble's fragility? That's crazy!

7. The jugular vein in David's neck is bulging, appropriate for someone in a state of fear or excitement (as the young shepherd would have been). Michelangelo evidently knew this was a feature of the circulatory system, but medical science didn't document this discovery for another 124 years.

Believe what you wish, but if the ancients did not possess the required understanding of medicine, what's the explanation for their knowledge? You can't chalk it up to a coincidence! I'm not ready to state 'Divine Intervention' but something has to provide insight, doesn't it? 

8. It was stylistically groundbreaking. Earlier interpretations of David, such as by Donatello and Verrocchio, depicted him victorious over the already slain Goliath. Here, he's at the precipice of battle, his intense stare and furrowed brow depicting a contemplative moment.

9. David represents the idealized male form and proportion, a common theme of Classical Greek sculpture. But Michelangelo's work is much more naturalistic, rooted in an anatomical understanding which far surpassed the Greeks. David is both a beautiful representation of the ideal, yet astonishingly lifelike - a defining achievement of the Italian Renaissance.

Incredulous only partially explains the emotions garnered by the statue's achievement.

10. Today, around 1.5 million people visit David every year. It has lived in the Accademia Gallery in Florence now for 150 years, since it was moved inside in 1873 to protect it from the elements.

As you can imagine, Michelangelo earned the admiration of many for his toils, including the great Renaissance artist and historian Giorgio Vasari ... "When all was finished, it cannot be denied that this work has carried off the palm from all other statues, modern or ancient, Greek or Latin; no other artwork is equal to it in any respect, with such just proportion, beauty and excellence did Michelangelo finish it."

Of course, David was not the only offering from the brilliance of the sculptor, CLICK here to see a list of the his work, not the least of which was the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. 

According to Wikipedia Michelangelo's creative abilities and mastery in a range of artistic arenas define him as an archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and elder contemporary, Leonardo da Vinci. Given the sheer volume of surviving correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences, Michelangelo is one of the best-documented artists of the 16th century. He was lauded by contemporary biographers as the most accomplished artist of his era. His contemporaries admired his terribilità—his ability to instil a sense of awe in viewers of his art.

Michelangelo continued to produce exquisite pieces well into his senior years, even credited with a piece called the Rondanini Pietà, which he worked on six days before his death in 1564 at the age of 88. Sadly, the piece would never be completed because he carved too deeply until there was a lack of stone.

The face behind the chisel / brush / pen was in steep opposition to the work.

Paraphrasing Wikipedia, his reclusive nature made him a curiousity with his contemporaries, said to have been indifferent to food and drink, eating "more out of necessity than of pleasure". Although considered amongst the greats of the High Renaissance along with da Vinci and Raphael, he had little to do with other artists, even outliving many of them by more than forty years. His biographer Paolo Giovio says, "His nature was so rough and uncouth that his domestic habits were incredibly squalid, and deprived posterity of any pupils who might have followed him." He shunned disciples, being by nature a solitary and melancholy person, bizzarro e fantastico, one who "withdrew himself from the company of men." Michelangelo's bank accounts and numerous deeds reveal his net worth was about 50,000 gold ducats, more than many princes and dukes of his time.

Yet another example of the balance of Life ... when graced with talents well beyond those of the average in one facet, the payback was made up in other components.

Still, there's no arguing the beauty of his work.