Bellotto’s Blunder and Michelangelo’s David (original) (raw)

Source-notes in The History of Art, 2016

Abstract

Michelangelo’s David is one of the world’s most famous works of art (fig. 1). Like Mona Lisa’s smile, the David’s pose is instantly recognizable, and almost anyone with even a brief familiarity with Renaissance art can strike the pose by memory, at least in basic form. It consists of a contrapposto stance involving one arm (the left) raised with hand to the shoulder and the other hand resting against the thigh. The David today represents a quintessential artistic pose identified with a specific and unmistakable work of art. As this article shows, however, this was not always the case. In 1740, the young Venetian artist Bernardo Bellotto (1722–80) traveled to Florence, where he painted several views of the city, including

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