I'll start. Michelangelo's David. Everyone has heard of and seen this sculpture at least in picture, and they know it in every detail. Or do they? I, for one, thought I did. I thought the real deal had nothing more to offer than its numerous, too numerous, pictures, reproductions and homages could. Boy! Was I wrong! It's amazing to see live, in a way no picture can ever give justice.
First, the proportions : this sculpture was intended to be at the top of a cathedral, but if it was build with proportional human measures, it would have looked disproportionate from tens of meters down below, with a small head and huge feet. So Michelangelo reversed that on purpose, making its head way bigger than it should be compared to its lower body. Kind of like the pools in the Versailles castle's gardens near Paris : King Louis XIV wanted to see his pools straight, but normal perspective makes them look wider at the near end, so his engineers built it wider at the far end on purpose, so they look straight when looked at from the castle's windows.
Second, and this really is the amazing part, there are two sides to Michelangelo's David, on one side, he looks like this young, innocent child, ready to be thrown in the wolf's den. On the other side, he looks aged, wise, worried and burdened with the weigh of life on his shoulders. You can't properly see this on pictures, and even with separate pictures for both sides, the action of being there and moving from one side to the other and seeing his face change before your eyes is well worth twice as much as the admission fee to the Galleria dell'Accademia, in Florence, Italy, where it is exposed.
I'll start. Michelangelo's David. Everyone has heard of and seen this sculpture at least in picture, and they know it in every detail. Or do they? I, for one, thought I did. I thought the real deal had nothing more to offer than its numerous, too numerous, pictures, reproductions and homages could. Boy! Was I wrong! It's amazing to see live, in a way no picture can ever give justice.
First, the proportions : this sculpture was intended to be at the top of a cathedral, but if it was build with proportional human measures, it would have looked disproportionate from tens of meters down below, with a small head and huge feet. So Michelangelo reversed that on purpose, making its head way bigger than it should be compared to its lower body. Kind of like the pools in the Versailles castle's gardens near Paris : King Louis XIV wanted to see his pools straight, but normal perspective makes them look wider at the near end, so his engineers built it wider at the far end on purpose, so they look straight when looked at from the castle's windows.
Second, and this really is the amazing part, there are two sides to Michelangelo's David, on one side, he looks like this young, innocent child, ready to be thrown in the wolf's den. On the other side, he looks aged, wise, worried and burdened with the weigh of life on his shoulders. You can't properly see this on pictures, and even with separate pictures for both sides, the action of being there and moving from one side to the other and seeing his face change before your eyes is well worth twice as much as the admission fee to the Galleria dell'Accademia, in Florence, Italy, where it is exposed.