Michelangelo’s “David” Two Views
Let’s face it. Book banners and art-haters base their disgust on their own sexuality. The first image is what right-wing haters want to see. Humanists and art lovers prefer the second image. Why?
It’s pretty obvious why. Even the image of naked full-frontal warrior David should never be shown to students. Art books should be pulled from the shelves in red states. How perverted, they say. The human body must not be seen naked like it has been depicted throughout history by sculptors and painters long before Michelangelo. He gets a bad rap.
What’s missing in this right-wing attack on art is a love of the history of sculpture and paintings of nudes over time. They apparently believe anyone who looks at David or other nudes will become perverts. I think they actually believe that. However, I’m one of millions who love Michelangelo’s genius in sculpture and painting —ones who aren’t perverts after decades of appreciating the skill taken to make lifelike humans from stone.
I’m including a link to a comprehensive photo collection from Getty Images. Even these photos can’t take place of seeing David in person. I was with a large group of tourists walking in circles around the statue. Haters look at the genitalia; art lovers study the hands and feet, the muscles in his arms and legs, his head and facial expression. I rest my case.
https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/michaelangelo-david
Diane, this was perfectly written. I grew up in the South and the hangups were there then so it definitely wasn’t due to these beautiful works of art, books that talked of anything sexual were on the shelves in libraries at school, as well as the city library.
The Southern Methodist church was the “wilder” church, other than the Catholic Church which was the devil’s house because they professed that they “prayed to Mary” instead of GIF and the worshipped the Pope who claimed to be God (their words not mine)
Now the small town Methodist church wants to break away from the current Methodists because of Same Sex Marriage.... for some reason they believe people will “turn gay” if “they” are allowed to marry.
This thinking, the way everyone was told for years, is the reason I no longer believe in organized religion, especially because I cannot believe in a God who would allow things that happen each and every day. Free will? BULLSHIT.
I missed the hymns and fellowship but none of the rest.
The beauty of the body is what makes humans become well adjusted. To hide anything that wants everyone to not see it? That makes people want to see it and think of sex & the body as a dirty action.
Thank you for a wonderful post.
It’s best for the evangelicals and conservatives with all of their hangups to visit Florence Italy on a Monday. The museum is closed.
With a height of 17 feet, that’s three times taller than a 5’-8” male, with everything else proportionately sized. Sorry, that’s hard math for a Florida voucher or home school education, multiplying feet and inches and proportions.
It’s the only display in the room. Almost everyone enters and is surprised by the size, then their gaze continues upward from the halfway point.