I can neither sleep nor dream since I first saw David.
A descent into slumber will begin, but my mind drifts not to darkness. It snaps back into life with an image of a limb or curve. To a delicate vein on the right wrist. To a furrowed brow and a gaze which will not meet my own.
He is the reason that I'm sitting here at the rented apartment in Florence, my laptop on a table made of old church tiles and the silver coffee pot with the melted handle bubbling in the background, at 4:34 am.
Emily is in bed, and yet I'm writing about someone else.
Someone I met just two days ago, in a near-empty room, and by whom I was intoxicated.
Falling for a statue of a boy not yet a man is, obviously, absurd; and yet this feels like those first innocent days of love. When a stolen teenage glance or shared coy smile between then strangers would take the mind to endless possibilities and permutations, and the thrill would be in imagining the love affair, rather than having to deal with the reality of making it happen or thinking about the day when the damp towel of the mundane smothers those nascent flames.
The boy who slayed a giant towers over everyone.
He is ageless perfection, despite his many lovers over the centuries.
We grow old, David remains the same.
Our skin, flawed and spotted, wrinkles and creases.
His remains smooth, taut and flawless; his furrowed brow the betrayal of his fixation on the task ahead, backed by and in the service of his God.
How could one man’s hands caress such human emotion out of hard white stone?
David’s masculinity comes, not from the obvious, but from his contrapposto nonchalance and defiant confidence.
It's Brad Pitt in Fight Club, only with worse abs.
It’s the eyes that give him away. His certainty that, with intellect and focus, he will take down Goliath with only a sling and a single stone. I see fear in them, and a sense of trepidation, but it's buried deep. More pressing emotions such as duty, action, valour, and courage - values which aren’t terribly valued these days - will win the day and forge his destiny.
Once the stone is cast, nothing will be the same for him.
A boy on the precipice of becoming a man; that is the moment Michelangelo carved into the stone.
My personal experience of some great art is one which often disappoints.
That's not on the art though.
Sometimes, I simply don't get it. I can appreciate the work, the craft, but often need it explained to me. Little meanings or elements of symbolism go over my head, or don't seem worth a fuss.
If it doesn't elicit the feelings I think I'm supposed to have, then my viewing experience is one of angst and frustration at my blindness or limitations, rather than a sense that, perhaps, great art is greatly subjective.
The Mona Lisa? It's lovely, but I don't hold a candle to it.
I prefer instead to wander around a gallery and see what calls out to me. It may actually be a masterpiece, but often it's just the title and the artist's name with no associated grandeur or preconceived sense that 'this' is worth your attention.
I expected David to fall into the former category. A work that is so famous that it has to be seen, and you sort of have to pretend to be in awe of it even if you cannot see what really distinguishes it from all the others.
But David really was different to all the others.
Perhaps it was because Emily and I shared the room with only him and four security guards for an eternal three minutes. We were in the first morning time slot, but the early onset of a hangover from an unexpected night on Via dei Neri fuelled by a bleach-blond barman called Marco, and then a curious look at the smoky leopard skin sofas of MonteCarlo (our little secret) until 2am meant we turned up to a place near the back of the pre-paid ticket queue at the Galleria dell’Accademia.
After security however, the dozen or so people ahead of us vanished.
I think we turned left, whilst they went right. Or perhaps they really needed the toilet. Either way, the fates aligned so that we were the first people to enter the long room with the boy bathed in golden Florentine light at the end of it.
We gasped on first sight.
I had assumed that man-made David was, despite his fame, man-sized; the giant slayer, confined here since 1873, is actually more of a giant himself.
The second part of my ignorance, which I feel must be confessed, is that I did not know that Michelangelo's David was David of David vs. Goliath. Not a clue. How on earth I made it through three decades without making that connection, I'll never know.
We had remarked the previous morning at the Uffizi at how prominent certain themes and characters - Biblical and not - were for the Baroque and Renaissance painters. There’s Bacchus, David vs. Goliath, Judith slaying Holofernes, a lot of St John the Baptist, and each artist brought their own interpretation or slant upon them. That was one of the many gifts of a nascent artistic education which Florence bestowed upon us during our week.
In the Uffizi, there's a Guido Reni painting with a David too cocky and too much resting on his laurels looking upon Goliath's detached and bloody head on a plinth.
I have no faith in who that boy will become.
Here, in the white marble of Michelangelo's masterpiece, he is primed before the battle, rather than decadent in the spoils of his underdog victory.
The right hand. The grace. The slight dips on the torso and the snake hips. The delicate rib cage piano under the left arm. The tenderness of the throat and clavicle. That impossible bellybutton.
I read later on that David was carved from a piece of marble which had lain rejected by other artists, and that Michelangelo was not the first artist commissioned for him. There are a couple of easy to grasp metaphors there about how perfection can come from imperfect beginnings.
I also find out that Michelangelo's creation of a David before the battle, rather than after, was a revolutionary step. The artist's confidence in that move, to disrupt how things are done, is clear - it is man looking forward to change with a certain confidence and assuredness, impervious to the doubts of those aware of the odds stacked against him.
This David stands defiant, ready to make his fate.
Having glimpsed perfection a few mornings ago, it will be hard for anything else to compare.
I'm sure my sleep will recover, and the memories will fade, but David will still visit me in my dreams.
His perfection reminding me of my own imperfections, but also, my own perfectibility; that perfectibility, even though unattainable, is something that should be striven for.
As I grow old, he will remain as beautiful as ever.
HOW TO SEE THE David STATUE IN FLORENCE
Michelangelo’s David is the star attraction at the Galleria dell’Accademia, and every visitor to Florence plans on seeing him, with tickets regularly selling out weeks in advance.
You can still purchase tickets on the door, but do not be surprised if you’re faced with a very lengthy queue and wait of two to three hours if you just turn up in peak season.
Therefore, we highly recommend buying guaranteed skip-the-line tickets to see David in advance.
We’ve include the basic information below, but you can find a much more detailed overview on ticket options, tours, and tips to make the most of your time with David without the crowds in our dedicated post: How To Buy Galleria dell’Accademia Tickets (Even If It's Sold Out)
Tickets | It’s €12 per adult, €2 for EU citizens aged 18-25 with ID, free for children under the age of 18 and for disabled travellers plus a companion.
You have two options: buy your ticket online in advance for a designated time slot or turn up an join the queue on the day. The former is absolutely the best option if you want to save time and increase the potential to see David with fewer people.
You can buy your tickets in advance via the official site here, but note that these sell out several weeks in advance during the summer months, attract an additional booking fee of €4, registration is required, and no refunds, amendments or cancellations are offered.
If the above are all sold out, or you require more flexibility, we’d recommend buying a timed ticket via Get Your Guide. They offer much better availability for dates when the official website is sold out, even relatively last minute, and you can even cancel tickets up to 24 hours for a full refund.
Note that if you choose to take a guided tour to visit the David statue in Florence, a priority skip-the-line ticket is included in the overall price, so that’s another good alternative if the official website is sold out. This is a highly-rated tour option with an art historian.
Where | The Galleria dell'Accademia di Firenze (Google Maps) is located on 58/60 Via Ricasoli on the north bank. It’s a small-ish building and relatively easy miss if there weren’t long queues and the unfortunate scribbles of graffiti on the wall. It’s a little bit of a walk to it from the river or other popular sites in the centre, and we recommend you factor in adequate time so that you comfortably arrive 20-minutes before your time slot.
When | Opening hours from 8.15 am to 6.50pm, with last admissions at 6.20pm (Tuesdays-Sundays). The museum is always closed on Mondays. There’s no cloakroom, so no large backpacks are permitted.
For much more detail and advice on the three best ways to get your tickets, even if the official website is sold out, make sure to read this post: How To Buy Galleria dell’Accademia Tickets
