Read the excerpt from "Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge" by Hon. Seth Low, Mayor of the City of Brooklyn. In the course of the construction of the Bridge a number of lives have been lost. Does it not sometimes seem as though every work of enduring value, in the material as in the moral world, must needs be purchased at the cost of human life? Let us recall with kindness at this hour the work of those who labored here faithfully unto the death, no less than of that great army of men who have wrought, year in and year out, to execute the great design. Let us give our meed of praise to-day to the humblest workman who has here done his duty well, no less than to the great engineer who told him what to do.

The content of this excerpt makes it clear that

the audience was not very grateful to those who built the bridge.
the mayor owned the company that built the Brooklyn Bridge.
the building of the bridge was incredibly difficult and dangerous work.
the finished bridge was not worth the high cost of construction.

perhaps donatello’s landmark work – and one of the greatest sculptural works of the early renaissance – was his bronze statue of david.  this work signals the return of the sculpture in the round figure, and because it was the first such work like this in over a thousand years, it is one of the most important works in the history of western art.

david is shown at a triumphal moment within the biblical storyline of his battle with the philistine, goliath.  according to the account, after david struck goliath with the stone from his slingshot, he cut off his head with goliath’s sword.  here, we see the aftermath of this event as david stands in a contemplative pose with one foot atop his enemy’s severed head.  david wears nothing but boots and a shepherd’s hat with laurel leaves on top of it, which may allude to his victory or to his role as a poet and musician.

before donatello’s work, david was typically depicted as a king, given his status in the old testament.  here, however, we have a stark change in the way david is depicted.  not only is he shown in the, but he’s also a youth.  in middle ages, nudity was not used in art except in certain moral contexts, such as the depiction of adam and eve, or the sending of souls off to the underworld.  in the classical world, was often used in a different, majestic context, such as with figures who were gods, heroes, or athletes.  here, donatello seems to be calling to mind the type of heroic nudity of antiquity, since david is depicted at triumphal point in the biblical narrative of his victory over goliath.

as for david’s youthfulness, donatello has gone back to the early life of the biblical david to depict him, rather than to his later life as a king.  it seems that donatello is trying to associate david’s youth with an innocent and virtuous life.  david looks young here – so young, in fact, that his muscles have barely developed enough to hold the large sword – that his victory over his foe is all the more improbable.  could david’s victory have been gained without divine intervention?   donatello’s work seems to imply that the answer is “no” – the victory was god’s rather than man’s.

in any case, donatello’s david is a classic work of renaissance sculpture, given its judaeo-christian subject matter modeled on a classical sculptural type.  it was revolutionary for its day – so much so that it did not get copied right away.  the idea of the life-sized sculpture-in-the-round evidently took some time to sink in and become an acceptable statue type