Advertisement Continue reading the main storyWhen I first saw the David in person, the only word that came to mind was “perfect.” Why hadn’t anyone ever told me he was perfect? “Perfect,” I know now, is not a terribly original response to the statue, nor a very precise one, but in that moment it filled my mind. The block that would become the David was cut out of the mountains 11 years before its eventual sculptor’s birth. Michelangelo was a native of the quarrying world, fluent in its ways, but the sculptor who chose the block, Agostino di Duccio, was largely ignorant of them. He had been selected by one of Florence’s most influential groups, the Wool Guild, to carve a monumental marble statue of the biblical David.

Source: New York Times August 17, 2016 09:00 UTC