David (Michelangelo)
David is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture created in marble between 1501 and 1504 by the Italian artist Michelangelo. "David" is a marble statue of a standing male nude. The statue represents the Biblical hero David, a favoured subject in the art of Florence.
The Deposition (Michelangelo)
One night in 1555, Michelangelo attacked the group in a moment of frustration in an attempt to completely destroy it. He broke off numerous limbs from the figure. Vasari noted that Michelangelo had complained about a vein in the marble causing problems for him continuously while carving. Another factor that intensified Michelangelo's frustration was that his servant Urbino had been bothering him to finish it. Despite all of these factors, they still are not big enough for Michelangelo to just throw away eight years of work from a momentary lapse of reason. Ambiguities and unexplained aspects on Michelangelo's part are at the center of interpretation of this work. Art historians have found possible answers that explain on a deeper level the dissatisfaction he had with the sculpture. They theorize that Michelangelo could have had significant problems with both the growing sexual motif of a slung leg over another's lap, and with the persecution of the Nicodemists.