Preview

David of Michelangelo vs David of Bernini

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
894 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
David of Michelangelo vs David of Bernini
David- Michelangelo vs. Bernini

The Baroque period of the 17th century had both incorporated and rejected the ideals of the antecedent High Renaissance art. Like High Renaissance art, Baroque art focused on making idealized and natural artwork. However, Baroque art introduced a way of involving the viewer into the artwork that was new and differed from High Renaissance art, which instead kept the viewer at a distance. The composition and diagonal movement in the space are two of the features of Baroque Art that originated intense emotional responses in the viewers. These features are reflected in Bernini’s David and they contrast Michelangelo’s David. While the realism and dynamism of Bernini’s David make it a typical Baroque work, Michelangelo’s David high idealization and more static and solid pose make it a typical work of High Renaissance art.
The statues represent the same character, the David who beats Goliath, and they both embody the ideal of male form in a natural setting rather than posed. Michelangelo and Bernini were able to give personality, emotion, and quite nearly a soul to their works. In this sense, the statues are similar because they both were innovative with respect of the ancient tradition that created works that were perfectly balanced, but not as perfectly evocative. However, there are some differences between the two David : the timing of the action that they capture, their physical characteristics, and their involvement with the surrounding space.
While Michelangelo depicted a David who is contemplating a task ahead of him, Bernini captured the young man already involved in the action that will mark his success. This is where the differences between the statues originated: Michelangelo’s work had to manifest confidence, focus and controlled emotion, all necessary for a man who is preparing for something; Bernini’s had to be all about the determination involved in the heroic act and its dramatic character.
Michelangelo’s David

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Mona Lisa, painted by Leonardo da Vinci around 1503-6, is oil on panel. It is a three quarter portrait of a young, Florentine woman. She is sitting in a chair with her torso twisting around to face the viewer. Her hands are resting on the arm of the chair. Behind the woman in the background is a landscape very characteristic of many Leonardo paintings. The Mona Lisa was painted toward the end of Leonardo’s career. In contrast, the David created by Michelangelo around 1501-4, is a marble sculpture of the biblical hero David. The seventeen foot tall statue depicts a young man standing in contrapposto. Most of his weight is supported with is right leg, while his left leg is relaxed. He holds his sling over his left shoulder and a rock in his right hand. His torso faces forward while his head twists to the left with an apprehensive, determined expression.…

    • 782 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Renaissance Art Influence

    • 1347 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Therefore, “David,” is a fit symbol of courage and civic duty to guard the city. Standing 13’5″ tall, the double life-sized David is depicted patiently waiting for battle, prepped with slingshot in one hand and stone in the other. Michelangelo, in his mid twenties, carved the David after he had already carved the Pieta in Rome. He carved this sculpture from a huge block of marble that had been abandoned decades earlier by another sculptor: Michelangelo took on the challenge of living up to Donatello and other precursors who had sculpted the same heroic figure. Instead of creating David to look relaxed and confident after his victory, Michelangelo's David looks tense and ready for combat. His brow is furrowed, the tendons in his neck are taut, as are the muscles in his nose and lips, and his eyes are focused on something in the distance. Despite this mental concentration, he stands in a relaxed “contrapposto” position, with his sling casually thrown over his left shoulder. This combination of intense expression and calm pose is intended to capture the short period between the decision to fight and the fight itself. The statues hands and head appear to be disproportionally large for his body, possibly because they were deemed more visually important for viewers who would see the statue high up…

    • 1347 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Art 101 Week 8 Checkpoint

    • 363 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Donatello’s and Michelangelo’s David are similar in many ways. Both sculptures being from the Renaissance, they share some characteristics in form. Each artist positioned the body of David in the contrapposto position. Their bodies are curved, relaxed and shown in the nude. This reflects the popular style of sculpture of the culture and relates the ideas about the human form. Donatello’s David is different from Michelangelo’s most in the physical attributes of the body. Michelangelo’s David has more of the sculpted bodies of the Greek gods. The sculpture is muscular, mature and his physical beauty is not to be overlooked at. Donatello’s David has the body of a young man still developing into his body. Instead of appearing strong and confident, David appears to have a young boy facing a task much harder and larger than him.…

    • 363 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Michelangelo and Verrocchio both have incredible artistic talents and show it in each of their David sculptures, yet they both convey a different meaning of David in their own ideal and using their own medium. Michelangelo and Verrocchio both represent David in different ways through the meaning they convey, the skills and techniques they use, and the beauty that they each portray . Michelangelo and Verrocchio are both artists from the city of Florence, Italy. In this piece both artists were trying to portray the biblical scene of David fighting Goliath, and winning. Their backgrounds have a major influence on the way they…

    • 1044 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Art101 Comparison

    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Differences between Michelangelo’s David and Bernini’s David are abundant and clear. Bernini’s version of David is a more classical interpretation. It focuses on David’s muscularity and his bone structure. In this version David is clothed, but just barely, ensuring that the viewer can see the definition of David’s muscles, and yet not revealing too much. Bernini’s version also shows David in action, as opposed to Michelangelo’s still pose of David. Bernini chose to sculpt David right in the midst of battle believing this would showcase him the best. This is because Bernini’s version was sculpted during the Baroque period, a time when it was thought that artwork should evoke strong emotions. Whereas Michelangelo sculpted in the Renaissance style, which David in a pose that relayed he was still but ready to move. We can also see differences just within the face of each sculpture. Michelangelo’s version we find being deep in thought, perhaps contemplating his next move, which is typical of classical Renaissance art. Then we have Bernini’s version being tense and concentrating on his next move, as he is battling. This seems to be the classic battle of mind versus brawn. Yet another difference is the actual size of the sculptures. Michelangelo’s version, taking on the characteristics of Greek artists, which was typical during the classical Renaissance period, is oversized. Just as the Greek’s strived for perfection through the human form, so did Michelangelo. Therefore his version is over an extra head tall, whereas Bernini’s is scaled back to a life sized version, making him more relatable. Both sculptures do share the same medium, which is marble.…

    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Humanism DBQ

    • 1221 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Two portraits can be used as an example to show how the art style in the Renaissance differs from past artwork. “One is from Ballini, Portrait of a Young Man and the other was painted by Raphael, called Portrait of a Young Man With an Apple (Doc. 5).” In Ballini’s work, we see a man staring off to something to the left with a blank expression on his face. He is wearing dark clothes and there is no background behind him. In Raphael’s work however, we see a man holding an apple which rests on his other hand. He has different textured clothes on and he is looking at the painter with a bit more expression to his face. There is also a background in this portrait. There may be some differences in both portraits, like their point of view, what they are doing in the painting, or what the background style is like, but both of these portraits have a major similarity. They both are portraits of a man, which show the concept of humanism and focus on the individual. In both portraits, there's is a good amount of detail on the face and what the man is looking at. This is also seen in a sculpted statue called David, by Michelangelo (Doc. 7).” Michelangelo sculpted David with an excessive amount of detail from his muscular complexion to his serious expression and contrapposto stance. Renaissance artists focused more on the concept of humanism and included it into their works of art by bringing out facial features and expressions, defined human details, and used new art techniques like contrapposto and linear perspective which made Renaissance art differ greatly from past artwork, which featured less humanistic qualities standing…

    • 1221 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    David, who was destined to be the second king of Israel, destroyed the Philistine giant Goliath with stone and a sling. Donatello, Verrocchio, Michelangelo, and Bernini each designed a sculpture of David. However, the sculptures are drastically different from one another. Each one is unique in its own certain way.…

    • 925 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Michelangelo’s sculpture of David was sculpted to represent David’s victory of the tyrant Goliath and was supposed to represent the Republican Florence (Sayre, 2010). Many of the citizens objected to the nudity and many threw rocks at the sculpture to the point where individuals had to be paid to watch over it. After all of the objection there was a skirt made to cover the mid section of David.…

    • 319 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The High Renaissance was a period denoting the apogee of the visual arts in the Italian Renaissance during of which two artists were commissioned to sculpt a very historical figure by the name of David who threw his heroism slaed a Goliath. Donatello’s and Michelangelo sculpture of David are both remarkable pieces of art that have many similarities and differences. In my opinion, I think Michelangelo’s statue of David overall is relaxed pose, but the tension of the statue is held in the face of David. Paying close attention to the statue’s face, one would notice his eye brows are in a downward narrow position. This would indicate to the viewer that there is more behind in the statue than just a casual pose. Also Michelangelo demonstrates a profound knowledge of the human anatomy. As I stated before, the detailed intensity of the eyes and eyebrows and the focus it brings to the face. His eyes are in a keen state focusing on an impending battle; furthermore the face is filled with confidence and aggression.…

    • 1001 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    First of all Michelangelo was not the only one to attempt to create the David. He was actually the 3rd artist to attempt to complete this amazing piece of art. The project was first started by Agostino di Duccio in 1466 but for reasons unknown to us he quite the project(citation). At this point the piece of white marble was carved roughly on its lower half which would cause problems for artists to come. After him came Antonio Rossellino another famous artist, who started working on the piece of marble in 1476. Soon after starting work on the huge piece of white marble his contract was terminated, which left the marble block barely changed. After having two seperate famous artists do work on this piece Michelangelo was hired to work with the aged and chiseled piece of marble. It took three separate artists and took around 35 years, art was clearly very important to the people of this time. It took Michelangelo 2 years to get the sculpture just right. Originally the art work was to be placed in the Florence Cathedral where 11 other legendary biblical figures would be accompanying the David. During this time many people believed in God and the bible, therefore biblical heroes were often created into statues, which reflected their beliefs in God and biblical heroes like David. Amazingly the David was the only one of the 12 biblical heroes to ever…

    • 976 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Michelangelo s David

    • 2027 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Traditionally, David was portrayed after his victorious triumph over Goliath. Looking back at both Verrochio’s and Donatello’s Davids, the sculpture was depicted standing over Goliath’s severed head. However, Michelangelo depicted David before the battle. Michelangelo’s David will become one of the most beautiful and ideal sculptures during the Renaissance.…

    • 2027 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Most of them had a religious figure or point of view, which is why they were so important to the Catholic Reformation. Gianlorenzo Bernini was a strong sculpture who filled his work with passion. During the Baroque period, sculptures were in a position where they were distorted enough so the person viewing it had to look completely around it. Similar to paintings Bernini sculpted realistic pieces. His sculpture, “David” was 5”6’ in height with tone and tight muscles. Most sculptures were fully clothed to please the church. Artwork during this time was filled with passion, and realism, which is how we can depict it from the rest.…

    • 1583 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti were both major figures of the fifteenth-century Italian High Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452 and was twenty two years old when Michelangelo was born in 1475. Both grew up breathing art and became passionate about it. These two famous artists created masterpieces and techniques that influenced and astonished artists, scholars, and other individuals even to this day. Each artist completed different forms of art than one another and had different interests as well as art. They used different techniques and motivation which made their work distinctive. Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti were eminent artists in the Italian Renaissance; the two men shared several similarities…

    • 837 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Michelangelo's David

    • 779 Words
    • 4 Pages

    When thinking of sculptures, one of the first that comes to mind is David. This statue was created of marble between 1501 and 1504 and stands over 14 feet high. David is a symbol that represents strength and anger. The statue had intended political connotations for the ruling of the Medici family. Michelangelo used David as model of "heroic courage" to demonstrate that "spiritual strength can be more effective than arms". Michelangelo insisted that David should stand as a symbol of the republic and act as a warning that Florence shall be governed justly and bravely". This was the first time since antiquity that a large nude statue be exhibited in a public place.…

    • 779 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Memi And Sabu Comparison

    • 519 Words
    • 3 Pages

    One main similarity I find between the two statues is the distinct use of sharp lines and patterns. In the statue of Memi and Sabu, the subjects' hair is perfectly patterned to show texture, and Memi's wrap is lined to show draping detail. On the Statue of Gudea, the king's headdress also has a precise geometric pattern and clean linear details places on his clothing.…

    • 519 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays