David



David, 1430-32, Donatello



The Biblical figure of David has a long and illustrious tradition in art.  We are, of course, all familiar with Michelangelo's "goliath" figure of David dating  from 1501-04.  However before that, there were stone sculptings of the figure more than a century before and Donatello's groundbreaking, life-size, nude, bronze figure of a rather boyish David wearing a wide-brimmed hat, standing a bit pensively over the severed head of his slain enemy. This he created in 1408 making it the first life-size nude statue since classical times.

Andrea del Verrocchio created a somewhat similiar life-size bronze figure for the de Medici family (who, incidentally, also owned the Donatello figure). His sculpture, also of an adolescent, but clothed, is, in contrast, is much more heroic and slightly older, exuding pride ans self-confidence, rather than the dreamy gaze of disbelief seen in Donatello's work. This sculpture was created about 1470.   

   


David, 1473-75, Verrochio



Between these two landmark works comes the efforts of a painter, Andrea del Costagno, who contributed his vision of the David tradition in a painted shield done about 1450-55. Although he was undoubtedly familiar with the Donatello sculpture, his painting however bears little resemblence to it. This David is an athletic young man, dressed in a short, white shirt and flowing red tunic, wielding his sling and stone, arm upraised, standing over the severed head of Goliath, defending the faith, taking on all comers.

The Youthful David, 1450, Andrea del Castagno



Costagno's inspiration seems to have been sculptural. However it bears no debt to the the Early Renaissance, but to Roman sculpture instead, and strangely, it seems based upon an ancient statue in marble of a  feeling warrior. Yet there is no hint of fear nor flight in this work. Costagno's strongly defiant David may, in fact, have been the inspiration not just for Verrocchio, but for Michelangelo as well. Yet it is more than that.  It is a figure in a fighting pose, not unlike that of Gianlorenzo Bernini's Baroque marble of David done almost 175 years later.