Michelangelo’s David: a review
It’s bigger than the pictures. Way bigger. Ten, maybe twenty feet high. Maybe 25. Who knows? But bigger. Bigger than the Taschen!
But that’s okay. Far be it from me to dispute an artist’s choices. Conscious, subconscious, a choice is a choice. That’s the artist’s right.
The workmanship is amazing. Muscles detected under the stone — first class. At flesh Bernini was better but this is still some achievement.
But — and this grieves me to say — I think Michelangelo could have done better. There’s a real failing here.
The work lacks social and moral point. The problem is the head. It’s on the level. Now, research has established (Wikipedia) that this prophet David is casting “a warning glare” at the Medici rulers in Rome, in defence of civil rights. OK, but from ground level — where most of us mortals are looking from — that does not come through. He’s up there staring into space. Even in Taschen.
What Michelangelo should have done was give the head a 45-degree angle. Tilted up, it would have been an eloquent exhortation to aspiration. Secular, spiritual, viewer’s choice, but aspiration! Or tilt it down: a call for compassion. Or if there is that “warning glare” — a moral exhortation to the citizenry. That is, after all, what the prophets were all about.
Now, that would have been a success, a great work, for the ages.
There’s another problem that maybe I shouldn’t raise in these sensitive times. But my valour has always been the better part of my discretion. So here goes.
Why isn’t Michelangelo’s David made Jewish? We know he was, if we read the book. All the prophets in that series were Jewish. Why is he left an Everymentsch with no Jewish signifier?
You can’t tell from the schmendrick. Michelengalo gave him a small dick. Three little marbles. Marble marbles. Maybe he didn’t want to intimidate the male viewer. Or to arouse the female. I respect his choice. But you can’t see if it’s circumcised. So no clue, Jew or no.
It would’ve killed Michelangelo to put on a yarmulke? His budget wouldn’t allow?
Or maybe even a tallis. The kid could do marble folds of fabric, robes; he could have managed tzitzis too, Bernini was better but tzitzis could have put Michelangelo up there. They can do wispy locks of hair and gleaming satin, he could do tzirtzis.
Perhaps Michelangelo couldn’t foresee this — there are limits to even the best artists’ intuition. But this denial of David’s Jewishness leaves it vulnerable to expropriation.
Today that plays into the Palestinians’ campaign to replace the Jewish state. They already say Jesus was a Palestinian non-Jew. That Jewish patriarchs, their burial sites, even all the Jewish historic land is really Palestinian. Small step for them now to say this David was a Palestinian too. And that “warning glare” is indeed against the rootless, modern flood of Jewish “settlers” who are “stealing their land” and won’t accept peaceful coexistence so should be eradicated.
Here’e the historic background that threatens the Jewish David. In a 1977 interview with the Dutch paper Trour, Zuheir Mohsen, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, stated that "the Palestinian people" were a propaganda invention. (The KGB proposed that idea to Arafat, an Egyptian, around 1962). As Mohsen admitted, the demand for a Palestinian state solely continues their campaign against the Jewish state. ”In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism….. For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem."
I guess Michelangelo just could not see that coming. To be fair, who could? Even today, who can believe that rewrite of history is believed?
Still, Michelangelo -- a great artist! But his David could have been better. Wish I'd been there.
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