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David with a Sling, Myself with a Bow...Michelangelo
The exhibition in the Twelve-Column Hall presents the sculpture of David by the outstanding Italian master Michelangelo (1475-1564) and photographs by Aurelio Amendola. The exhibition was prepared by the State Hermitage together with the Bargello National Museum in Florence with support from the General Consulate of the Republic of Italy in St Petersburg. "David with a Sling, Myself with a Bow...Michelangelo" - these lines written by on a sheet of paper by Michelangelo alongside a sketch for the marble and bronze statue of David (circa 1501-1502, Louvre, Paris) may be considered an epigraph to the entire creative opus of the great sculptor. For most art lovers, the name of Michelangelo is associated firstly with the gigantic marble statue of David that was placed in 1504 before the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence (now in the Academia Gallery). There was also a bronze statue done for the French marshal Pierre de Rouen, which was lost in the 17th century. The exhibition in the Hermitage presents the third statue of David by the master (Florence, Bargello National Museum). The history of its creation is not entirely clear. Giorgio Vasari wrote that the statue depicted Apollo and Michelangelo worked on it for Baccio Valori, a commissar of the troops who took Florence in 1530. In the 1553 inventory of the Palazzo Vecchio, it is mentioned as "David" and therefore it is usually listed under the traditional name "Apollo - David." In terms of its artistic merit, the statue from the Bargello Museum is on a par with the recognized masterpieces of Michelangelo. The pose of the youth is simple and natural. The elegic motif adds a mood of pure and radiant melancholy. The incompleteness of the statue is characteristic of Michelangelo’s late manner. According to the latest hypotheses, the so-called Crouching Boy in the Hermitage collection can be dated to the same period as "Apollo – David" (circa 1530-1534). The quality of execution of the statue leaves no doubt about Michelangelo’s authorship. The tragic image of a young athlete pressed down against the earth can be associated with the Florentine Republic, which as conquered by the troops of the Pope and Emperor. Direct juxtaposition is possible now for the first time and has great scholarly interest. The photographs of works by Michelangelo presented at the exhibition were done by the Italian art photographer Aurelio Amendola, who is a specialist in photographing works of architecture and especially sculptures. He has made classic photographs of works by Donatello, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Giacomo Manzu and other sculptors of the 20th century. In 2004, the publishers Federico Motta issued a book by Cristina Acidini Luchinat Michelangelo, the Sculptor, for which all the photographs were done by Aurelio Amendola. By finding unexpected perspectives of the statues and using bold contrasts of light and shadow, increasing the expressive details of the marble surfaces, the master enters into a dialogue with Michelangelo as it were and shows the spectator all the wealth of his artistic language. An illustrated scholarly catalogue of the exhibition has been prepared
by the publishing house Arti Graphica Mota (Milan). |
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