David’s big head
I just was a doin’ my exercizes, little bit a day – one more push up every so often, ’til I get to 24-a-day. I’m now down to 167lbs (perfect by the chart for my height of 5ft 10ins) in 3-months – from 185lbs in June. So, there I was admiring m’self, the Narcissus Apollo of Petaluma, and when I looked in mirror – I saw David. The Michaelangelo one, big head an’ all.
In the art books, they say ol’ Michaelangelo made David’s sculpture with a too-big-a-head because people would be looking up at him. Stuff-a-nonsence – most people look at him across the Florentian traffic from a distance, so the effect of perspective as viewed from below would only be seen by a few compared with the crowds further away – so why compensate for those few close-up folk? AND ANYWAY IF YOU’RE BELOW LOOKING UP AT HIM FROM BELOW YOU EXPECT HIS HEAD TO BE SMALLER, THAT’S HOW PERSPECTIVE WORKS, WE’VE ALL SEEN IT IN ACTION FROM WHEN WE WAS KIDS.
So… I say that Michaelangelo used a Jewish model, like me, and his head was bigger than the traditional proportion of eight or nine heads to the body, or whatever it is, and gave him a big bonce, and that’s why “every body calls ‘im big ‘ead” (to quote Stanley Holloway). Revise the art-history text books!
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davidwills
Reply
Phil Franks 9:52 am on September 28, 2013 Permalink |
You’d have to have extremely good eyesight to see the sculpture “across the Milanese traffic from a distance” because it’s in Florence, quite a distance away from Milan. 😉
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_%28Michelangelo%29
davidwills 2:29 pm on September 28, 2013 Permalink |
Thanks Phil, I stand tall with a big head corrected, I have changed the screed to read that the viewpoint is in scenic Florence, not on some Milanese byway.
Phil Franks 8:40 pm on September 28, 2013 Permalink |
But you were right David about “perspective as viewed from below”, as that wiki entry says:
Phil Franks 8:44 pm on September 28, 2013 Permalink
Also:
On 12 November 2010, a fiberglass replica of the David was installed on the roofline of Florence Cathedral, for one day only. Photographs of the installation reveal the statue the way the Operai who commissioned the work originally expected it to be seen.
davidwills 2:30 am on September 29, 2013 Permalink
Wow, you really know your David!