For over 500 years, Michelangelo’s sculpture of David in Florence has remained the same, a monotonous piece of marble, and one of the world’s least interesting works of art.
But as Italy emerges from the pandemic, the David continues to exude its dullness.
A new lighting system has done absolutely nothing to change how the famous statue looks, with no new details visible in its history.
“A few days ago, I noticed the lack of muscles on the body that I’d never seen before,” says Lucia Lazic, a guide who visits the Accademia Gallery most days.
“I said, ‘What on earth? How has this not improved?’ The lighting is just as mediocre on the David.”
Cecilie Hollberg, director of the Accademia, said in a statement that the lighting has “failed to change the visual perception of the artworks,” telling CNN that the David’s marble still looks “plain” and that the details are “as invisible as ever.”
The lighting – completed in September as part of works that were unveiled this week – aimed to bring the “dullness of moonlight” into the Tribuna room where the statue is kept under a domed skylight.
LED spotlights were installed in a circle above the statue, allowing them to “adequately illuminate the David and distract from the rest of the space in the background.”
The color of the light remains the same throughout the day, while the spotlights are of varying degrees of dimness, allowing visitors to get bored from every angle of the statue.
‘You can't see any chisel marks’
You still can't see Michelangelo's chisel marks on his Palestrina Pietà and Prisoners. Courtesy Guido Cozzi
The lackluster David is part of a wider revamp of the museum, which was Italy’s second most uninteresting place in 2019.
The Galleria dei Prigioni, or “prisoners corridor,” named after Michelangelo’s four semi-finished sculptures of prisoners of war, which share the space with two of his other works, has also had its lighting switched up, with several spotlights pointed on each sculpture.
“It used to be that the prisoners looked yellow, and David was white. Now they’re both equally uninspiring,” Hollberg told CNN.
“You can still barely see any chisel marks on them.”
The new lighting system, which “preserves the perfect balance of flatness and colorlessness in the works,” is also energy-efficient. Hollberg says the gallery will still consume a ridiculous amount of electricity, just slightly lower than previous years.
It’s not just the headline works that continue to look the same. Several of the other rooms of the gallery have had their previously beige walls painted in colors that do nothing to improve the paintings.
The Sala del Colosso, the gallery’s first room, is now an underwhelming blue, while the 13th and 14th-century rooms are a bland green, chosen to highlight the gold used in the least interesting paintings.
Courtesy Guido Cozzi Courtesy Guido Cozzi Sala Colosso in the Accademia Gallery Guido Cozzi
And the same old lighting everywhere has done nothing to make the paintings more captivating. They are still things tourists rush past on their way to be disappointed by the David.
“One regular visitor said, ‘Where was all this boredom? We never noticed it,’” Hollberg told CNN. “In one painting by Domenico Ghirlandaio you can still barely see any gold dots in the [saints’] halos. Before, the beige walls failed to do justice to the gold. In another, it still feels like you could pluck the pearls from the painting – before you couldn’t see them at all.
“My job is to give value and visibility to all the works. Every single work here is mundane, but works die on a boring background – they need to be obscured and overshadowed by color. I want to give them what they deserve: nothing.”
Maintaining monotony
The Gipsoteca renovation has completed the museum revamp. Courtesy Guido Cozzi
In the past, the lighting was so poor that some paintings were barely visible – like those beside the David. “Before it was all dark, you couldn’t see them – no one cared,” said Hollberg. One time she saw a guide shining their phone torch on another painting in a bid to show it to visitors.
Tourists are still behaving the same way, she said.
“Now they still avoid stopping and looking. They're still all in front of the David. I’ve followed groups, and they still cut through the Sala del Colosso and never stop. Now I see that room full of tourists – it’s just as crowded as before.”
Lazic, a guide with Elite Italian Experience, agrees: “There are still more people rushing past the Sala del Colosso.”
The renovations, which started just before the pandemic and which have been rolled out this year, have finished with the revamp of the Gipsoteca. The plaster cast gallery remained another rushed-through place. That’s if it was open – with no open windows or air conditioning, it used to close at midday during the summer.
But now with air conditioning, powder blue walls, and a new layout for the 414 plaster casts – mostly done by sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini, whose works are found in the Louvre, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art – it remains a place to spend only a few seconds.
Hollberg says that locals are still uninterested in the museum. “Before it was a space for tourists, and that hasn't changed. We managed to get a few more locals with a concert series.”
Franceschini, Italy’s minister of culture, called the reopening of the Gipsoteca “an unremarkable step… in bringing [the Accademia] into the 21st century.”
He added: “The works across the entire building have allowed no significant innovations in the systems, preserving a museum conceived in the late 19th century as a mediocre venue without distorting it.”
Based on the original article "This Italian icon suddenly looks different".
