david.

The feats of mankind are limited only by our imagination. As Elon Musk and his crew sent a damn car into space last week, the feeling that the future is here has never been more apparent. But has the future always been here? 

Wandering through Rome and Florence the past two weeks has made me realize how incredible human advancements have been over the past several thousand years. When I stare at the Pantheon, the Colosseum, the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore or any number of classic structures, I am staring at a paragon of creation. These buildings, conceived and built with inconceivably fewer resources than we have today, just leave you in a state of wonderment and awe as you attempt to process just how they did it.

If you asked me to immediately summon words to describe mankind 1000 years ago, they would be ones like "carnal", "conquer-driven" or "provincial". To my own dismay, I don't tend to give credit where credit is due. I just get caught up in ideas ingrained in my brain courtesy of my history teachers; thoughts of constant warfare, social ordinances, the mandated repression or utter lack thereof. I foolishly assume that because it was so long ago, they knew very little about the world around them and how things really worked. But despite their belief that the earth was flat or in a geocentric view of the universe, they did know an incomprehensibly large amount about applied mathematics, geometry, architecture, materials, etc. I just wonder if they realized just how influential their structures would be and for how long they'd be adored. 

This feeling of sheer awe catapulted to new heights while bearing witness to one particular work of art: Michelangelo's David. I can legitimately say that I've never been so taken by a single creation in my 27 years. 517 years ago, a 26 year old took a hunk of marble that had been sitting outside and extracted one of the world's most famous sculptures. 

Sculpture in general blows my mind. To take a large hunk of earth and work backwards to remove the excess material leaving just the components you desire, is tough to wrap my head around. But to evoke from the marble one of the most graceful (and disturbingly accurate) depictions of man, is just miraculous. 

Any art enthusiast will tell you that seeing a work of art in person trumps any photographic representation of it. But there's something to be said about the energy of a piece. A true work of art captures the essence of its creator and allows the latter to speak through the former for as long as the piece is beheld. In a magnum opus, an influential artist has not just created a lasting piece, they have secured their immortality and through it, I believe, kept a piece of their soul on display for all to see. 

As soon as I walked into the hallway where David stands, I felt his presence. I first tried to admire some of the other art on the walls before walking up to where he stood, but it was useless. He beckoned me forth. And I, swept away by his charm, proceeded. 

Now to appreciate beauty is simple. But to be vulnerable to beauty is not. To let the power of beauty wash over you, cleanse you and command you requires a degree of willingness that takes time and energy. But every once in awhile we come across an object that strips us of our guard and demands to affect us. David - the accurateness of his anatomy, the dynamic energy of his contrapposto, the promise of a shephard boy who will soon slay a great warrior and become king - all of this just grabs hold of your being and refuses to let go.