Michelangelo describes in the above quote what it is like to carve a likeness of a person out of a large block of marble. As we know from seeing his work, he did an excellent job with this task. Bernini did just as fine a job on his, but in a much different way as you will see in the following pages.

Michelangelo was born on March 6, 1475, in Caprese, Italy, a tiny village, owned by the nearby city-state of Florence. His father was the mayor. He attended school in Florence, but he was preoccupied by art. When he was 13, his father agreed to apprentice him to some well-known painters in Florence. Michelangelo was unsatisfied with these artists, because they would not teach him their artistic secrets. He went to work under another sculptor hired by Lorenzo de Medici.

When Michelangelo was 21, he went to Rome, where he was commissioned to carve a group of marble statues showing the Virgin Mary supporting the dead Christ on her knees. His sculpture was called Madonna Della Pieta, and it made Michelan

The viewer becomes physically involved with the action of the statue. David's eyes sight past us. The viewer's space is his and will soon be the stone's. The split second of time captured in the marble demands a single, clear point of view (Janson 556).

Although both of the above artists chose the same subject matter, there are many differences between their sculptures. The first difference is the moment the artist chose to represent. Michelangelo chose the moment just before the start of the battle. His David is thinking about what he is about to do. Bernini on the other hand, chose the split second before David launches the stone from his sling. By choosing this moment, Bernini has created a dramatic representation of an event frozen in time, suggesting the next series of events, the release of the stone and the death of Goliath. His figure is bursting with the same energy that Michelangelo had stored in his figure.

Keutner, Herbert. Sculpture Renaissance to Rococo: A History of Western Sculpture.

Wallace, Robert. The World of Bernini: 1598-1680. New York: Time-Life Books,

The tension of the twisted body shows the force that David is ready to release. His foot grips the base of the statue to withstand the strain in the body. The action has reached that moment when the stone is about to be released. It is a marvel of dramatic action frozen in stone. "The unruly hair, the knitted brow, and above all the clenched mouth indicate one of those moments when the complete physical and psychic resources of the will are summoned to extraordinary effort" (Stokstad 759).

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