Back Home
Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Search in posts
Search in pages

More results

Menu
  • Start here
    • Looking at art
    • Approaches to art history
    • Tools for understanding museums
    • Tools for understanding religion in art
    • For the very beginner
    • Close
  • Art histories
    • Prehistoric
      • Paleolithic
      • Neolithic
      • Close
    • Africa
      • East Africa
      • West Africa
      • North Africa
      • Southern Africa
      • Central Africa
      • Close
    • The Americas
      • North America to 1500
      • North America c. 1500 – 1900
      • South America to 1500
      • South America c. 1500 – 1900
      • Close
    • Asia
      • Hinduism and Buddhism: a beginner’s guide
      • China
      • Korea
      • South Asia
      • Afghanistan
      • Southeast Asia
      • The Himalayas
      • Close
    • Ancient Mediterranean
      • Ancient Near East
      • Egyptian
      • Aegean
      • Greek
      • Nabataean
      • Etruscan
      • Roman
      • Palmyra
      • Close
    • Medieval Europe + Byzantine
      • A beginner’s guide
      • Christianity and art
      • Judaism and art
      • The medieval book
      • Early Christian
      • Byzantine
      • Early medieval
      • Carolingian
      • Ottonian
      • Romanesque
      • Gothic
      • The Crusades
      • Close
    • The Islamic World
      • A beginner’s guide
      • Early Period
      • Medieval Period
      • Later Period
      • Close
    • Europe 1300-1800
      • Italy: 14th century
      • Italy: 15th century
      • Italy: 16th century
      • Northern Europe: 15th century
      • Northern Europe: 16th century
      • Spain: 15th and 16th century
      • Reformation & Counter-Reformation
      • Baroque: 17th century
      • Rococo: early to mid 18th century
      • Neoclassicism: late 18th century
      • British: 18th century
      • Close
    • Europe 1800 – 1900
      • Romanticism
      • Early photography
      • Victorian Art
      • Realism
      • Second Empire
      • Impressionism
      • Post-Impressionism
      • Symbolism/Art Nouveau
      • The Peredvizhniki
      • Close
    • Oceania
      • Lapita people
      • Polynesia
      • Melanesia
      • Micronesia
      • Australia
      • Close
    • Modernisms 1900-1980
      • A beginner’s guide
      • Fauvism + Expressionism
      • Cubism + early abstraction
      • Dada + Surrealism
      • German art between the wars
      • Latin American Modernism
      • American art to World War II
      • Postwar American art
      • Postwar European art
      • Conceptual + Performance Art
      • Post Minimalism
      • Global vanguards
      • Architecture + design
      • Close
    • Global Cultures 1980 – now
      • Appropriation and ideological critique
      • Identity and the body
      • Banality and kitsch
      • Ritual, spirituality, and transcendence
      • Histories, real and imagined
      • Close
    • Close
  • Themes + topics
    • Seeing America (bringing American history to life)
    • ARCHES (At Risk Cultural Heritage Education Series)
    • Across cultures
    • Creating + conserving
    • Short and long courses
    • AP Art History
    • A-level Art History
    • Contribute an essay!
    • Smarthistory video creation guide
    • Close

Europe
1300 – 1800

Browse this content
Expanding the Renaissance: a new Smarthistory initiative
Italy in the 14th century:
Late Gothic
Browse this content
A beginner's guide
Browse this content
Introduction to Late Gothic art
Distorting the Madonna in Medieval art
The Black Death
The conservator's eye: Taddeo Gaddi, Saint Julian
Gold-ground panel painting
Florence
Browse this content
A beginner's guide
Florence in the Late Gothic period, an introduction
Dante’s Divine Comedy in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance art
Cimabue
Cimabue, Santa Trinita Madonna and Child Enthroned
Cimabue and Giotto compared
Giotto
Giotto, The Ognissanti Madonna and Child Enthroned
Giotto, St. Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata
Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel
Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel (part 1 of 4)
Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel (part 2 of 4)
Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel (part 3 of 4)
Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel (part 4 of 4)
Giotto, The Entombment of Mary
Andrea Pisano, Reliefs for the Florence Campanile
Siena
Browse this content
Siena in the Late Gothic, an introduction
Duccio
Duccio, Maesta
Duccio, The Rucellai Madonna
Duccio, The Virgin and Child with Saints Dominic and Aurea
Ambrogio Lorenzetti
Palazzo Pubblico frescos: Allegory and Effects of Good and Bad Government
Presentation of Jesus in the Temple
Pietro Lorenzetti, Birth of the Virgin
Simone Martini, Annunciation
Pisa, Pistoia and Rome
Browse this content
Nicola Pisano, Pulpit, Pisa Baptistery, and Giovanni Pisano, Slaughter of the Innocents, Pulpit, Sant'Andrea church, Pistoia (Italy)
Giovanni Pisano, Pisa Pulpit
Pietro Cavallini, The Last Judgment
Italy in the 15th century:
Early Renaissance
Browse this content
A beginner's guide
Browse this content
How to recognize Italian Renaissance art
Illustrating a Fifteenth-Century Italian Altarpiece
The study of anatomy
Contrapposto
Florence in the Early Renaissance
Linear Perspective: Brunelleschi's Experiment
How one-point linear perspective works
Early applications of linear perspective
Central Italy
Browse this content
Painting
Gentile da Fabriano
Adoration of the Magi
Adoration of the Magi (reframed)
Masaccio
Virgin and Child Enthroned
Holy Trinity
The Tribute Money in the Brancacci Chapel
Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden in the Brancacci Chapel
Fra Angelico
The Annunciation and Life of the Virgin (c. 1426)
The Annunciation (c. 1438-47)
Paolo Uccello, Battle of San Romano
Fra Filippo Lippi
Madonna and Child with Two Angels
Portrait of a Man and Woman at a Casement
Domenico Veneziano, Saint Lucy Altarpiece
Antonio Pollaiuolo, Battle of Ten Nudes or (Battle of Nude Men)
Perugino, Christ Giving the Keys of the Kingdom to St. Peter
Ghirlandaio, Life of the Virgin
Cassone with the Conquest of Trebizond
Sandro Botticelli
La Primavera (Spring)
The Birth of Venus
Dissecting Botticelli’s Adoration of the Magi
Piero della Francesca
The Baptism of Christ
Flagellation of Christ
Resurrection
Portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino
Luca Signorelli, The Damned Cast into Hell
Sculpture and architecture
Filippo Brunelleschi and Lorenzo Ghiberti, Sacrifice of Isaac
Lorenzo Ghiberti, Gates of Paradise, East Doors of the Florence Baptistery
Filippo Brunelleschi
Old Sacristy, San Lorenzo
Dome of the Cathedral of Florence
Pazzi Chapel
Santo Spirito
Orsanmichele and Donatello's Saint Mark, Florence
Nanni di Banco, Four Crowned Saints
Donatello
St. Mark
Feast of Herod
Madonna of the Clouds
David
Equestrian Monument of Gattamelata
Mary Magdalene
Leon Battista Alberti
Palazzo Rucellai
Façade of Santa Maria Novella, Florence
Sant'Andrea, Mantua
Northern Italy: Venice and the Marches
Browse this content
Carlo Crivelli, The Annunciation with Saint Emidius
A beginner's guide
Browse this content
Venetian art, an introduction
Oil paint in Venice
Ca' d'Oro
Palazzo Ducale
Devotional confraternities (scuole) in Renaissance Venice
Aldo Manuzio (Aldus Manutius): inventor of the modern book
Saving Venice
Giovanni Bellini
St. Francis in the Desert (or St. Francis in Ecstasy)
San Giobbe Altarpiece
San Zaccaria Altarpiece
Giovanni Bellini and Titian,The Feast of the Gods
Andrea Mantegna
San Zeno Altarpiece
Saint Sebastian
Dormition (or Death) of the Virgin
Camera Picta (Camera degli Sposi)
Dead Christ
Italy in the 16th century:
High Renaissance and Mannerism
Browse this content
A beginner's guide
Toward the High Renaissance, an introduction
Renaissance woman: Isabella d’Este
The Medici collect the Americas
Galileo Galilei
Galileo and Renaissance art
Central and Northern Italy
Browse this content
Leonardo da Vinci
About Leonardo
Leonardo's Letter to the Duke of Milan
Leonardo: Anatomist
Leonardo and his drawings
Adoration of the Magi
The Virgin of the Rocks
The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist (Burlington House Cartoon)
Last Supper
Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa (from HENI Talks)
Michelangelo
About Michelangelo
Pietà
David
The many meanings of Michelangelo's David
Moses
Slaves
Quarrying and carving marble
Carving marble with traditional tools
Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
Studies for the Libyan Sibyl (recto); Studies for the Libyan Sibyl and a small Sketch for a Seated Figure (verso)
Last Judgment, Sistine Chapel
Medici Chapel (New Sacristy)
Laurentian Library
Raphael
Marriage of the Virgin
Madonna of the Goldfinch
La belle jardinière (Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist)
School of Athens
The Alba Madonna
Portrait of Pope Julius II
Galatea
Pope Leo X
Donato Bramante
Tempietto, Rome
Saint Peter's Basilica
Mannerism
A beginner's guide to Mannerism
Jacopo Pontormo, Entombment (or Deposition from the Cross)
Parmigianino
Parmigianino, Madonna of the Long Neck
Parmigianino, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
Rosso Fiorentino, The Dead Christ with Angels
Bronzino
An Allegory with Venus and Cupid
Portrait of Eleonora di Toledo with her son Giovanni
Bronzino and the Mannerist Portrait
Sofonisba Anguissola, Self-Portraits
Benvenuto Cellini, Perseus with the Head of Medusa
Giambologna, Abduction of a Sabine Woman
Venice
Browse this content
Giorgione
The Tempest
Three Philosophers
The Adoration of the Shepherds
Titian
Pastoral Concert
Noli me Tangere
Assumption of the Virgin
Madonna of the Pesaro Family
Bacchus and Ariadne
Two portraits of Pietro Aretino
Venus of Urbino
Christ Crowned with Thorns
Titian and Jacopo Palma il Giovane, Pietà
Correggio
Jupiter and Io
Assumption of the Virgin
Paolo Veronese
The Family of Darius before Alexander
 The Dream of Saint Helena
Feast in the House of Levi
Transcript of the trial of Veronese
Jacopo Tintoretto
The Miracle of the Slave
The Finding of the Body of Saint Mark
The Origin of the Milky Way
Last Supper
Andrea Palladio
La Rotonda
Teatro Olimpico
Northern Europe in the 15th century:
Northern Renaissance
Browse this content
A beginner's guide
Browse this content
An introduction to the Northern Renaissance in the fifteenth century
Introduction to Fifteenth-century Flanders
Introduction to Burgundy in the Fifteenth Century
Northern Renaissance art under Burgundian rule
Biblical Storytelling: Illustrating a Fifteenth-Century Netherlandish Altarpiece
The Norfolk Triptych and how it was made
Burgundian and adjacent territories
Browse this content
Claus Sluter and Claus de Werve
The Well of Moses
Mourners
Herman, Paul, and Jean de Limbourg
Limbourg brothers, Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry
The Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry
Campin and his workshop
Robert Campin, Christ and the Virgin
Workshop of Robert Campin, Annunciation Triptych (Merode Altarpiece)
Jan van Eyck
The Ghent Altarpiece
Portrait of a Man in a Red Turban (Self-Portrait?)
The Madonna in the Church
The Arnolfini Portrait
The question of pregnancy in Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait
Petrus Christus
Portrait of a Carthusian
A Goldsmith in his Shop
Portrait of a Young Woman
Rogier van der Weyden
Deposition
Crucifixion Triptych
The Last Judgment
The Crucifixion, with the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist Mourning
The Holy Thorn Reliquary of Jean, duc de Berry
England, France, and Tyrol
Browse this content
England
The Harrowing of Hell
France
Enguerrand Quarton(?), Pietà of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon
The Unicorn in Captivity
Tyrol
Michael Pacher, St. Wolfgang Altarpiece
Northern Europe in the 16th century:
Renaissance and Mannerism
Browse this content
An introduction to the Northern Renaissance in the sixteenth century
Inventing “America” for Europe: Theodore de Bry
Netherlands
Browse this content
Hieronymus Bosch
The Garden of Earthly Delights
Last Judgment Triptych
Gerard David, The Virgin and Child with Saints and Donor
Jan Gossaert, Saint Luke Painting the Madonna
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
The Dutch Proverbs
The Tower of Babel
Hunters in the Snow (Winter)
Peasant Wedding
Pieter Aertsen, Meat Stall
Bernard van Orley and Pieter de Pannemaker, The Last Supper
Germany and England
Browse this content
Albrecht Dürer
Who was Albrecht Dürer?
Albrecht Dürer, The Triumphal Arch
Self-portrait, Study of a Hand and a Pillow (recto); Six Studies of Pillows (verso)
Self-Portrait (1498)
Self-portrait (1500)
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
The Large Piece of Turf
Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve (video from The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Melencolia I
Decoding art: Dürer's Melencolia I
What is Melencolia?
The Four Apostles
Dürer's woodcuts and engravings
Grünewald, Isenheim Altarpiece
Lucas Cranach the Elder
Law and Gospel (Law and Grace)
Adam and Eve
Cupid complaining to Venus
Judith with the Head of Holofernes
Hans Holbein the Younger
About Hans Holbein the Younger
 The Ambassadors
The Merchant Georg Gisze
Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan
Albrecht Altdorfer, The Battle of Issus
The conservator’s eye: a stained glass Adoration of the Magi
Spain in the 15th and 16th centuries:
Renaissance
Browse this content
Renaissance in Spain, an introduction
El Escorial, Spain
El Greco
Burial of the Count Orgaz
View of Toledo
Adoration of the Shepherds
Reformation & Counter-Reformation
Browse this content
The Protestant Reformation
Introduction to the Protestant Reformation (part 1 of 4): Setting the stage
Introduction to the Protestant Reformation (part 2 of 4): Martin Luther
Introduction to the Protestant Reformation (part 3 of 4): Varieties of Protestantism
Introduction to the Protestant Reformation (part 4 of 4): The Counter-Reformation
Lucas Cranach the Elder, Law and Gospel (Law and Grace)
17th century:
Baroque
Browse this content
A beginner's guide
Browse this content
Baroque art, an introduction
How to recognize Baroque art
Francis Bacon and the Scientific Revolution
Italy
Browse this content
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Pluto and Proserpina (or The Rape of Proserpina)
David
Apollo and Daphne
Baldacchino, Saint Peter's
Bust of Medusa
Ecstasy of Saint Teresa
Cathedra Petri (Chair of St. Peter)
St. Peter's Square
Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, Rome
Francesco Borromini, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Rome
Annibale Carracci, Christ Appearing to Saint Peter on the Appian Way
Caravaggio
Narcissus at the Source
Calling of St. Matthew
The Conversion of St. Paul (or The Conversion of Saul)
Crucifixion of St. Peter
The Supper at Emmaus
Deposition (or Entombment)
Death of the Virgin
Caravaggio and Caravaggisti in 17th-century Europe
Guido Reni, Aurora
Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes
Guercino, St. Luke Displaying a Painting of the Virgin
Il Gesù, Rome
Andrea Pozzo
Glorification of Saint Ignatius
St. Ignatius Chapel, Il Gesù, Rome
Pierre Le Gros the Younger, Stanislas Kostka on His Deathbed
Flanders
Browse this content
Peter Paul Rubens
Elevation of the Cross
The Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus
The Presentation of the Portrait of Marie de' Medici
Arrival (or Disembarkation) of Marie de Medici at Marseilles
Venus, Mars and Cupid
The Consequences of War
Anthony van Dyck
Charles I at the Hunt
Samson and Delilah
Dutch Republic
Browse this content
Frans Hals
Singing Boy with Flute
Malle Babbe
The Women Regents
Rembrandt
Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp
The Night Watch
Self-Portrait with Saskia
Girl at a Window
Christ Crucified between the Two Thieves: The Three Crosses
Aristotle with a Bust of Homer
Bathsheba at Her Bath
Self-Portrait (1659)
The Jewish Bride
Judith Leyster
The Proposition
Self-Portrait
Willem Kalf, Still Life with a Silver Ewer
Gerrit Dou, A Woman Playing a Clavichord
Johannes Vermeer
The Glass of Wine
Young Woman with a Water Pitcher
Woman Holding a Balance
Girl with a Pearl Earring
The Art of Painting
Saenredam, Interior of Saint Bavo, Haarlem
Jan Steen, Feast of St. Nicholas
Jacob van Ruisdael, View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds
Rachel Ruysch
Fruit and Insects
Flower Still-Life
Jan van Huysum, Vase with Flowers
Huis ten Bosch (House in the Woods)
The Town Hall of Amsterdam
Spain
Browse this content
A Still Life of Global Dimensions: Antonio de Pereda’s Still Life with Ebony Chest
Juan Sanchez de Cotán, Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber
Diego Velázquez
The Waterseller of Seville
Los Borrachos (The Drunks), also known as The Triumph of Bacchus
Vulcan's Forge
The Surrender of Breda
Juan de Pareja
Las Meninas
Francisco de Zurbarán, The Martyrdom of Saint Serapion
Jusepe de Ribera, The Martyrdom of Saint Philip
Juan Martínez Montañés and Francisco Pacheco, Christ of Clemency
Jerónimo de Balbás, Altar of the Kings (Altar de los Reyes)
France and England
Browse this content
France
Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin, Et in Arcadia Ego
Nicolas Poussin, Landscape with Saint John on Patmos
Antoine or Louis Le Nain, Peasant Family in an Interior
Hyacinthe Rigaud, Louis XIV
Louis le Vau, André le Nôtre, and Charles le Brun, Château de Versailles
Claude Perrault, East façade of the Louvre
England
The Banqueting House, Whitehall Palace
c. 1700 - 1775:
Rococo
Browse this content
Rococo art, an introduction
Antoine Watteau, Pilgrimage to Cythera
François Boucher, Madame de Pompadour
The Tiepolo Family
Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun
Self-Portrait
Self-Portrait with her Daughter
Madame Perregaux
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
The Swing
The Progress of Love: The Meeting
Jean-Baptiste Greuze, The Village Bride
Bernard II van Risenburgh, Writing table
Late 18th century:
Neoclassicism
Browse this content
Neoclassicism, an introduction
The Age of Enlightenment, an introduction
Jacques-Louis David
Oath of the Horatii
The Lictors Returning to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons
Study for The Lictors Bringing Brutus the Bodies of his Sons
The Death of Marat
The Intervention of the Sabine Women
Napoleon Crossing the Alps
The Emperor Napoleon in His Study in the Tuileries
Angelica Kauffmann, Cornelia Pointing to her Children as Her Treasures
Anne-Louis Girodet, The Sleep of Endymion
Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Portrait of Madeleine
Antonio Canova
Paolina Borghese as Venus Victorious
Penitent Magdalene
Pierre-Alexandre Barthélémy Vignon, Church of La Madeleine
Jacques-Germain Soufflot, The Panthéon (Church of Ste-Geneviève), Paris
Britain in the 18th century
Browse this content
Wren, Saint Paul's Cathedral
William Hogarth
A Rake's Progress
Marriage a-la-Mode
Thomas Gainsborough, Mr. and Mrs. Andrews
Joseph Wright of Derby, A Philosopher Giving a Lecture at the Orrery
Sir Joshua Reynolds, Lady Cockburn and Her Three Eldest Sons

The many meanings of Michelangelo’s David

by TED-Ed

Video from TED-Ed. Speaker: James Earle.

Cite this page as: TED-Ed, "The many meanings of Michelangelo’s David," in Smarthistory, February 1, 2016, accessed August 19, 2019, https://smarthistory.org/the-many-meanings-of-michelangelos-david/.

At Smarthistory, we’re on a mission to open museums and cultural sites up to the world. We’re creating world-class resources on art and cultural objects for learners from around the globe—for free.

  • About Smarthistory
  • Smarthistory’s blog
  • Contribute an essay
  • Content editors and contributors
  • Donate
  • Follow us on Instagram
  • Subscribe to our newsletter
  • Contact Us

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

· © 2019 Smarthistory · Designed by Press Customizr · Powered by ·