Compare Donatello’s David with Michelangelo’s, in terms of their artistry, their cultural origins, and their reception

Question

Please provide the best answer for the statement.

Answer 1

1. The first life-size freestanding nude sculpted since antiquity, Donatello’s David is remarkable in other ways as well. The contrapposto pose is almost exaggerated. The young adolescent’s youthful gaze stands in marked contrast to the bearded head of Goliath at his feet. Because it is difficult to imagine that such a slight, adolescent figure could have slain a giant, it seems that Donatello wanted to underscore the ability of virtue, in whatever form, to overcome tyranny. At the same time, this young man might represent the vigor of the Florentine republic and its resistance to domination.
2. With the fall of Savonarola, the Signoria, Florence’s governing body, quickly moved to assert the republic’s survival in visual terms. It moved Donatello’s David from the Medici palace to the Palazzo della Signoria, and it asked Michelangelo to create another freestanding statue of David, but colossal in scale. The completed figure, more than 17 feet high without the pedestal, intentionally references Donatello’s David but also challenges it. Michelangelo represents David before, not after, his triumph, ready to take on whatever challenge faces him. The nudity of the figure and the contrapposto stance are directly indebted to the Medici celebration of all things ancient Greek. Its sense of self-contained, even heroic individualism captures perfectly the humanist spirit. Still, its treatment underscores the political and moral turbulence of the times. As workers moved the statue from Michelangelo’s workshop to the Piazza della Signoria, supporters of the exiled Medici hurled stones at it, understanding, correctly, that the statue was a symbol of the city’s will to stand up to tyrannical rule, including that of the Medici. Another group of citizens soon objected to the statue’s nudity, and before it was even installed in place, a skirt of copper leaves was prepared to spare the public any offense.