He Tried to Beat Michelangelo

Every time Bernini looked at Michelangelo’s David in the Piazza di Signoria it struck him as a bit static. It also seemed that more could be done in the way of realism.

He had heard Michelangelo praised for bringing life to his figures and Bernini considered that it would be easy to give his own David more life. He read the Bible story and he could just see the young David in action. Michelangelo had a great imagination—everyone said so—but maybe he, Gianlorenzo Bernini, had a greater one. Michelangelo´s figure, when you came right down to it, didn´t really illustrate the story very well. You couldn´t actually picture any action. You only saw a handsome young man shifting his weight from one leg to the other. And who could guess, unless he knew the story, what the youth was doing with that strap over his shoulder. It looked more like he was carrying his jacket. It was bad illustration, if you could forget your piety for the Master and say so. And who knew that there was a stone in his big right hand or what it was for?

The longer Bernini thought about it the more excited he got. Of course he could do it better! He was going to carve a David that would make Michelangelo´s look sick. To start with he would take the shepherd boy at a better moment—a moment later than the one Michelangelo had chosen. He would do his David just when he was loading his sling and winding up to hurl the stone. That was another flaw in the Master´s figure: it was no good from the back and, truthfully, no good from at least one of the sides either. Bernini would twist his David so that you discovered wonderful things no matter where you stood to take it in.

And the face! Michelangelo´s David looked as though he were posing for his picture—so relaxed in spite of the frown. A man who was fighting for his life would be focused on his weapon and his adversary—there would be time to be indignant later. Bernini would follow nature—wasn´t that the rule?—and have his David strain and grimace—grunt—with the effort, the way he really would have! Bernini worked frantically on little models until he had the pose. He knew it would be the greatest David ever carved. People would gaze at it and know the Bible story. He would have brought it to life for them. And they would praise him for his intelligence as well as his artistry.

They did praise him and they still do. That´s a real David, all right—believable, realistic. Does it rank even with the Laocoön? Did he beat Michelangelo?

(This was originally published on Oct. 4, 2007)

Michelangelo’s Most Famous Statue

David (1504, Carrara marble, The Accademia, Florence)

The statue is seventeen feet high and it was made to stand in one of the most prominent squares of Florence, in front of the town hall palace. It is supposed to commemorate the ridding from Florence of the Medici family,who had ruled it for years. The Florentines stood up to the tyrant Pierfrancesco de Medici just as the shepherd-boy David in the Bible story had stood up to Goliath; and they were now free.

Michelangelo carved the figure out of a huge block that was considered worthless. Two other sculptors had begun to carve and had ruined the block by drilling a hole right through the middle of it. Michelangelo took careful measurements and designed his figure to fit around the hole. He worked with such precision that in some places he had to leave the chisel marks of the first sculptors.

Some of the greatest artists of the Renaissance, including Leonardo da Vinci, formed a committee to decide where to place the statue and an ingenious crane was invented to move it into place.

Wasn’t the David of the Bible story a boy? Why did Michelangelo imagine him older? See Michelangelo the Humanist

Here is another statue of David by Leonardo’s teacher. It may be a portrait of Leonardo himself.

Aren’t the proportions of Michelangelo’s beautiful figure strange? See a discussion of some of its features here. And check out the lively comments that follow.

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Michelangelo and the Cheapskate 2

Portrait of Agnolo Doni by Rafael Sanzio

Doni turned to a visitor who sat in the great atrium of his house, amused by the funny exchanges. “These artists are the most shameless people on earth. I think I’ll just send back his ugly painting. Florence is full of Holy Family paintings—does he think his is such a work of genius? He’d better be happy if he finds someone generous enough—charitable enough—to give him ten lousy ducats. I’ve reached my limit.”

And he ordered his servants to put the painting back into its wrapping and take it to Michelangelo’s messenger, who stood watching with a frown. “A fellow can only be pushed so far,” he told the guest, who had to conceal his smile.

The guest was Doni’s neighbor and also a collector of rare and beautiful things. He had made more of a fuss over the painting than Doni himself. As the servants toted the painting by Doni and his visitor to hand it back to Michelangelo’s messenger, it suddenly struck Doni that Michelangelo would now be free to sell the painting again. And his neighbor might—would his neighbor actually try?—to buy it himself, that filthy schemer. It wouldn’t be above him.

So Doni became jealous of the painting and changed his mind about returning it. “Come into my office,” he told the messenger quietly; and went off with him, out of earshot of the guest. “Tell your master I’ve reached my limit. Here are forty ducats more. That’s obviously much above what even the artist thinks the painting is worth because it is forty ducats more than he originally asked.”

The messenger did not put out his hand to take the money. “That won’t do, you know,” he said. “My master is furious with you. When I went with the news that you had given him forty instead of seventy, he looked as though the Devil had gotten inside him. He said that when you ordered the painting you promised to pay him whatever he asked; and that he asked a fair price and you tried to cheat him. Now in punishment he has doubled the price. I’m sure he won’t accept a penny less.”

Doni ended up shelling out the seventy more ducats. Vasari tells the story to show how small-minded patrons can be but also to have us admire Michelangelo’s toughness. It probably came from Michelangelo himself—where else?

Those old Renaissance personalities were tough as nails and God deliver us polite weaklings from Florence the Jungle. None of those artists and craftsmen were pushovers. Was Michelangelo tougher than most? No doubt. “Terribile,” said the very Pope Julius of Michelangelo. Pope Julius could be pretty awful himself.

Return to Michelangelo and the Cheapskate 1

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