David Essay

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Recommended: Compare and contrast david sculptures donatello and michelangelo

The Christian hero David has stood as an inspiration for numerous artists coming from a diverse set of backgrounds, as his story influences theses individuals in wanting to honor him by using him as an idea for their works. The basic story is David was a shepherd boy who lived in Israel. God chose David to take care of the Jewish people. The Philistine army was fighting the Israelis. A giant, Goliath, was part of the Philistine army and the Israelis were terrified of him. David was a young boy – not part of the army – but who was nearby. He saw how Goliath taunted and mocked the Israeli soldiers and he got angry. David volunteered to fight the giant. Not being a soldier, David wasn’t familiar with armor or weapons, and refused both. He went with his simple tunic and slingshot. David felt that his people were in the right and God would protect him – justice would prevail in spite of the weapons that the Philistine giant had. With one shot of his sling, he got a stone to pierce Goliath’s head, the giant collapsed, and David then took Goliath’s sword and cut off the giant’s head (Italian Renaissance).
Donatello created the nude statue of David around the 1440s and it is believed to be a perfected version of the artist’s earlier representation of the hero. The fact that David wears a straw hat on his head is probably meant to stand as a reference to the hot weather that the hero was accustomed to. While most individuals associate this garment with lower classes, the laurel standing on the hat stands as a hallmark for victorious Roman Generals. Donatello’s David shows a young and feminized individual holding the head of Goliath at his feet, as the artist wanted people to acknowledge the hero’s victorious character through observing his...

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...hasizing God played an essential role in his battle with Goliath. The artist wanted to show that in spite of his fragility David managed to defeat someone who was far superior to him when considering each individual’s physical abilities (Adams).
Even with the fact that his David was depicted before the battle actually takes place, Michelangelo was probably inspired by concepts similar to the ones that inspired Donatello. Both artists intended to create artwork that would contrast feelings in Rome and that would make it possible for people in Florence to develop a sense of belonging to the state. Furthermore, with the Medici family sponsoring both artworks, it only seems natural that these artists wanted to create masterpieces that would trigger intense feelings in anyone seeing them and that would make the family and the city as a whole identify with David’s story.

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