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.
Separation of Light from Darkness
At the center of the composition, God is shown in "contrapposto" rising into the sky, with arms outstretched separating the light from the darkness. Michelangelo employed in this fresco the challenging ceiling fresco technique of "sotto in su" ("from below, upward"), which makes a figure appear as if it is rising above the viewer by using foreshortening. The contrapposto pose was also used by Michelangelo in the "David". It is reported that Michelangelo painted this fresco in a single "giornata", that is, a single working day of approximately eight hours. During Michelangelo's lifetime, this fresco was considered evidence of the painter's technical prowess at its peak. For instance, Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574), Michelangelo's student and biographer, wrote in 1550: