Showing posts with label weight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weight. Show all posts

Thursday, 24 April 2008

Davidone


No one seems to know who did this. Just as long as they keep their hands off Cellini's Perseus, seen below from the front and behind
- gloriously, almost fetishistically lit, so that he looks like one of those body-buffed CGI Spartans from 300. David's no slouch as a sex object, despite this final humiliation and his second life as a fridge magnet complete with wardrobe. But I've always had a preference for the rather rougher trade feel of the Cellini, and the fact that the faces of Perseus and the Medusa look almost identical, with the latter a slightly smaller version of the former, as though Cellini were trying to tell us something about power, as he does in his Autobiography. A few years ago, it was possible to get to within a few feet of the sculpture during its restoration and it was extraordinary to see how distorted the proportions are when you stand eye- or chest-level to it. It wasn't designed to be seen that way, of course, but even from below the sheer weight of the arms and legs is impressive. Just try slipping a pair of magnetised knickers over those thighs.