Artist michelangelo wiki

David is a masterpiece of Italian Renaissance sculpture in marble [ 1 ] [ 2 ] created from to by Michelangelo. With a height of 5. David was originally commissioned as one of a series of statues of twelve prophets to be positioned along the roofline of the east end of Florence Cathedral , but was instead placed in the public square in front of the Palazzo della Signoria , the seat of civic government in Florence, where it was unveiled on 8 September In , the statue was moved to the Galleria dell'Accademia , Florence.

In a replica was installed at the original site on the public square. The biblical figure David was a favoured subject in the art of Florence. The history of the statue of David begins before Michelangelo's work on it from to The advantages of democratic government never materialized, and internal circumstances grew worse as dangers from without increased.

Lorenzo de' Medici 's successors and their supporters were a constant threat to the republic, and it was in defiance of the menace they represented that the project of a marble David was renewed.

Michelangelo art style

The Overseers of the Office of Works, known as the Operai del Duomo , were officers of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore , the organization charged with the construction and maintenance of the new Cathedral of Florence. They had plans long before Michelangelo's involvement to commission a series of twelve large sculptures of Old Testament prophets for the twelve spurs, or protrusions, generated by the four diagonal buttresses that helped support the enormous weight of the cathedral dome.

In , Donatello had made the first of the series of statues, a colossal figure of Joshua in terracotta , gessoed and painted white to give it the appearance of marble at a distance.