Gods, Myths and Heroes - Part 38

David and Goliath

You're probably heard the Biblical story of David and Goliath.  David, a Jewish shepherd boy, kills the Philistine giant Goliath with a slingshot and a stone.  The most famous representation of David is of course the statue by Michelangelo, above, c. 1501.

Why is Michelangelo's David uncircumcised?  Because Michelangelo's models were all uncircumcised Italians.

But Michelangelo was not the first artist to depict David.  Around 1440, Donatello made this sculpture of David standing on the head of Goliath, which he has just cut off with Goliath's sword.  This was the first standing nude male sculpture created since the fall of the Roman Empire.  By the way, he's uncircumcised, too.

To us, this David looks campy, with long hair, hand on hip, and an effeminate hat.  Did it look like that to the 15th century Florentines?  I don't know, but we do know that Donatello and Michelangelo were both gay.

Here's a rear view of copies of Michelangelo's David and Donatello's David in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Mantegna painted David with the Head of Goliath c. 1490, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.  Although it looks three-dimensional, it's a painting.  And he's uncircumcised.

David and Goliath has been a popular subject for artists.  Above, David Remerciant Dieu d'avoir Frappé Goliath (David thanking God for having struck Goliath) by J.E. Chaponniere, 1834, in Geneva, Switzerland.

David Vainqueur de Goliath (David Conqueror of Goliath) by Antonin Mercié, 1870, in Toulouse, France.

David and Goliath, painted by Arthur Kampf, 1905-1915.  A good-looking blond David, even if he looks nothing like a Middle Eastern shepherd boy.

David och Goliat by Swedish sculptor Ivar Viktor Johnsson, 1921, in Zurich, Switzerland.  From this angle, we can just see the tip of his uncircumcised penis.

The Boy David memorial for World War I machine gunners, by Francis Derwent Wood, 1925, in Hyde Park, London.  What does David have to do with machine gunners?  In small print, the memorial quotes the Bible: "Saul hath slain his thousands, but David his tens of thousands."

David nackt (naked David) by Garl Geiser, 1959, in Schaffhausen, Switzerland.  Geiser also made a clothed David statue.

The Boy David on the Chelsea Embankment, London, by Edward Bainbridge Copnall, 1963.

The story of David in the Bible continues.  After David's victory over Goliath, Saul, the King of Israel, was jealous of David's success and hated him.  Saul proclaimed that David could marry his daughter, but her dowry price was a hundred foreskins of the Philistines, thinking that David would be killed fighting them.  Whereupon David and a band of men killed two hundred Philistines, and David brought the foreskins to the King.  Above, a bowl of foreskins (don't ask).

Here's this weird Bible story illustrated with Lego blocks.  Well, somebody had to count those foreskins!

But there are two sides to every story.  We end with some evidence that Goliath has his admirers, too.