Comparative essay of David

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Comparative Essay on David

The biblical story of David and Goliath served as a great source of inspiration for many artists during the renaissance and Baroque era. The story of David embodied inner strength, power, a will to survive, a sense of triumph. Donatello, Verrocchio, Michelangelo and Bernini are artist who sought to bring to life this story through their sculptures. The style in which David is represented changes significantly from work to work. However, It is apparent that each artist sought to portrait at least one aspect of David; pride, strength or power. After analyzing all four sculptures, each artist portrait one aspect of the story, but if we look at them collectively we can see the entire story unfold. Donatello explored the young innocent David, who got his strength and power from God.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Self-Portrait

English: A vertical panorama of a copy of the stat...

English: Michelangelo's David (original statue) De...

Verrocchio explored the second facet of David, he is still young but more aware of his strength and we start to see the emergence of the hero. Michelangelo explored the Hero, displaying a David preparing for battle, more mature and strong. Bernini finished the story by sculpting a David in the middle of battle, full of masculinity, strength and power both divine and physically. The combination of all four sculptures is as a slow moving motion picture, where we start with slow static posing represented by the sculptures of Donatello and Verrocchio. Michelangelo is the start of the battle, while Bernini fully employs dynamic rhythmos to give his sculpture a sense of motion, so that we see the battle in action.

As shown by Dr. Soltes, Donatello's sculpture of David, created towards the early Renaissance period was one of the most provoking works...