David (Michelangelo)

Michelangelo's David, carved between 1501 and 1504, under the skylit tribune of the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence. The 17-foot figure came out of a block two earlier sculptors had started and given up on, and it stood outside in Piazza della Signoria until it was moved indoors in 1873. Up close, look at the right hand hanging at his thigh: the veins stand out on its back as if the blood is still moving, the tension of a man about to act rather than one who has already won.