Bruce Guthrie Photos: DC -- Natl Gallery of Art -- "Michelangelo's David-Apollo" exhibit

DC -- Natl Gallery of Art -- "Michelangelo's David-Apollo" exhibit -- Notes:

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Description of Pictures: Michelangelo's David-Apollo
December 13, 2012–March 3, 2013
The presentation of the David-Apollo, a marble statue by Michelangelo lent to the National Gallery of Art by the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence, opens the nationwide celebration 2013?The Year of Italian Culture. The graceful figure of a youth in a twisting pose is mysterious in both mood and subject; the elements that would confirm an identity as either the biblical giant-killer David or the pagan sun-god Apollo were never completed. With flesh areas covered by a fine network of chisel marks, the statue is a fascinating example of the non-finito, the unfinished condition that allows viewers to study the sculptural process in many works by Michelangelo. This statue was displayed at the Gallery once before, in 1949, to celebrate Italian-American friendship at the time of President Harry Truman’s inauguration.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by Bruce Guthrie who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the Creative Commons definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. If asked for permission in advance, I'll usually waive the non-commercial clause unless it's for people trying to sell the photos. A free copy of any printed publication using the photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from official signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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[1] NGADAV_130218_006.JPG 0640x0480	[2] NGADAV_130218_011.JPG 0640x0480	[3] NGADAV_130218_017.JPG 0640x0480
[4] NGADAV_130218_039.JPG 0640x0480	[5] NGADAV_130218_045.JPG 0640x0480	[6] NGADAV_130218_053.JPG 0640x0480
[7] NGADAV_130218_077.JPG 0640x0480	[8] NGADAV_130218_081.JPG 0640x0480	[9] NGADAV_130218_093.JPG 0640x0480
[10] NGADAV_130218_098.JPG 0640x0480	[11] NGADAV_130218_112.JPG 0640x0480	[12] NGADAV_130218_129.JPG 0640x0480
[13] NGADAV_130218_143.JPG 0640x0480	[14] NGADAV_130218_152.JPG 0640x0480

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. NGADAV_130218_098.JPG: The David-Apollo and Michelangelo’s Unfinished Works This statue embodies a highly personal aspect of Michelangelo’s work -- his habit of leaving sculptures incomplete (non-frito). The results stimulate the imagination, as figures seem to emerge from the rough marble. The reasons for the practice have been much discussed. Michelangelo regularly took on more work than he could realistically complete, often carving several figures simultaneously. He apparently enjoyed the look of forms taking shape, born from the stone he loved. But the number of unfinished sculptures also suggests that he sensed a finished work would not live up to his idea, exalted and constantly changing. In one poem he referred to “the hand obedient to the mind” that confronts the near-impossible task of liberating the artist’s conception from the stone. Viewers can trace stages of execution through the marks of different tools: a point chisel to rough out forms, as on the back and tree stump, and claw chisels of various sizes to refine them, up to the comparatively smooth surfaces of the flesh. In less finished works by Michelangelo, such as the captives begun for the tomb of Pope Julius II, the visible process of bringing forth vital forms from inert material has evoked for some the work of God as described in the book of Genesis. This expression of the artist’s creative struggle also impressed the romantic imagination and inspired many later sculptors, especially Auguste Rodin. His marble works show figures with varying degrees of finish, the smoother elements in deliberate contrast to their massive, chisel-marked blocks. While the David-Apollo is nearly completed, the flesh areas remain veiled by a fine network of the claw-chisel marks that defined the shapes of the limbs. The roughed-out eyes appear to be closed, enhancing the impression of a figure who moves in his sleep. Least finished are the supporting tree trunk and the elements that would define the subject: the rectangle on his back that could become a quiver or sling, and the form under his right foot that could be a stone or the head of the vanquished Goliath. The David-Apollo dates to a time when Michelangelo was torn between his loyalty to the republic and his long devotion to the Medici family that had obliterated it. Consciously or not, he may have sought to put off the final choice between a beautiful but authoritarian pagan god and the young biblical tyrant-slayer, a hero of the lost republic.
2. NGADAV_130218_112.JPG: Michelangelo's David-Apollo: The loan of Michelangelo’s David-Apollo from the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, to the National Gallery of Art opens the Year of Italian Culture, 2013. This rare marble statue visited the Gallery once before, more than sixty years ago, to reaffirm the friendship and cultural ties that link the peoples of Italy and the United States. Its installation here in 1949 coincided with Harry Truman’s inaugural reception. The ideal of the multitalented Renaissance man came to life in Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), whose achievements in sculpture, painting, architecture, and poetry are legendary. The subject of this statue, like its form, is unresolved. In 1550 Michelangelo’s biographer Giorgio Vasari described the figure as “an Apollo who draws an arrow from his quiver,” but a 1553 inventory of the collection of Duke Cosimo de’ Medici calls it “an incomplete David by Buonarroti.” By then it had entered the Palazzo Vecchio (the seat of government in Florence), joining several earlier sculptures of the biblical giant-killer David, a favorite Florentine symbol of resistance to tyranny. Michelangelo’s colossal marble David, executed from 1501 to 1504, stood as a guardian at the entrance, holding a sling over his shoulder. The National Gallery of Art owns a fifteenth-century marble David, with the head of Goliath at his feet, made for the Martelli family of Florence. In the David-Apollo, the undefined form below the right foot plays a key role in the composition. It raises the foot, so that the knee bends and the hips and shoulders shift into a twisting movement, with the left arm reaching across the chest and the face turning in the opposite direction. This graceful spiraling pose, called serpentinata (serpentine), invites viewers to move around the figure and admire it from every angle. Such poses grew increasingly artificial in the work of later sixteenth-century artists who emulated Michelangelo by striving for a figure style that surpassed nature in power or elegance. An example here at the Gallery is the Venus wringing out her wet hair in a fountain. That bronze statue comes from the circle of Giovanni Bologna, the most celebrated sixteenth-century Florentine sculptor after Michelangelo. Michelangelo carved the David-Apollo for Baccio Valori, who was appointed governor of Florence in 1530 after the Medici and their imperial allies had crushed a resurgence of the republic. Having fought on the republican side, Michelangelo needed to make peace with the Medici and sought to please their henchman through this work. He brought the figure tantalizingly close to completion before leaving Florence, never to return, after the death of Pope Clement VII, his Medici patron and protector, in 1534. Valori, who later joined a failed rebellion against the Medici, was executed in 1537, and Duke Cosimo de’ Medici took possession of the statue.
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Same Subject: Click on this link to see coverage of items having the same subject: [Museums (Art)]
2013 photos: So far, I'm mostly using my Fuji XS-1 camera but, depending on the event, I'm also using a Nikon D7000 and Nikon D600. Trips this year have been limited to a Civil War Trust conference in Memphis.
Photo Contact: Email Bruce Guthrie.