A figure with its legs apart may not seem too daring or revolutionary. But IN STONE it isn’t wise. How are those skinny legs going to support all the weight of the rock (torso and head) above them? In fact, there is too much weight on David‘s ankles, in spite of the two tree trunks there to shore them up. There are cracks, especially in the right one.
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A block of stone isn’t a man, even if the great Michelangelo can make it look like one. Living things have learned to defy gravity with muscles (how do the plants grow UP?) but a stone just sits and obeys the law. Usually a figure like the David would have been conceived for bronze, which is stronger and can handle, i.e. give support to, representations of almost all human postures and pirouettes.
Here are some figures unsuitable for stone sculpture:
This is not to offend anybody, but don’t you think that this DAvid looks a bit like an ad for some gym? In fact, he looks more like Goliot himself, who was a giant and thought that David could never beat him. And there he was wrong.
I was looking and looking and no Mark Twain anywhere… I wanted to ask you and there he is, Mark Twain… suppose it’s a pen name because “gym ad” is kind of contenporary stuff… another great mistery solved…