On Seeing Michelangelo's David and the Three Pietas

 

Ellie wrote about Michelangelo’s David and her experience seeing it for the first time over on our joint Substack. Now I'm going to tell you a little about mine:

Stepping into the hall where Michelangelo’s David is in the Accademia is the most perfect museum experience I’ve ever had. It’s perfectly built: a long hall lined with half finished carvings stretches out in front of you, but you don’t even see those statues as your eyes are instantly taken by the giant statue standing at the far end of the room under its own dome. Eyes on nothing else, you walk over to it and you could spend actual hours just taking it in. The detail is beyond anything you can imagine; the other sculptures in the Accademia don’t even hold a candle to it. The fact that one man made this is unreal.

If, after taking in the statue of David for a while, you turn back and look at the half-finished works lining the hall you just passed, you will get an idea of how David began and how Michelangelo slowly carved him out of the stone, and be even more amazed at the skill and artistry. One sculpture in particular stands out here: the second of Michelangelo’s Pieta. The first I saw 11 years ago in Rome, and had a similar breathtaking experience with it as with David. This one is rough and very unfinished. I didn’t even know it existed until I read My Name is Asher Lev last year with Close Reads and learned that there were actually three (I promise I paid attention in art history class 😛) When we planned our trip to Florence afterwards, I knew I had to see the other two. While nothing like the smooth, polished, perfect Pieta in Rome, these two have a haunting and powerful quality to them despite their roughness. Because of their unfinished quality, they’re brimming with pathos and lost potential. The one of Nicodemus lifting Jesus down from the cross is so moving, that I can see why Asher Lev in the book comes to see and study it every day. Look at how the four heads and the body of Jesus imitate the cross from which they’ve just pulled him down. He carved this one towards the end of his life, and it’s said that he carved his own face as Nicodemus, wrestling with whether or not his own salvation was secure. Just imagine if it had been finished.

Perhaps the reason I didn’t remember these statues existing from art class is that I didn’t really care for Michelangelo. As a kid reading about him, I remember thinking he was mostly a stuck-up grump. Perhaps he was, but now I think of him mostly as my favorite artist.