Dirty John Bonny

A lost boy who wants to join the pirates ...

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Picture

Boy butts #3.



Donatello's David.

Before he was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi (you see why his mother used the nickname Donatello, except when she was really angry) was a fifteenth-century Florentine sculptor.

This David, commissioned by a Medici, is his best-known work.

Like Michaelangelo's David, it also was an earliest large Western work unconnected with architecture, created to be a free-standing piece.

It's one of the first big bronze sculptures of the Renaissance. I've no idea of all the technology involved in its creation. A quick search around came up complicated and confusing. There's wax and clay and cloth and armatures that eventually lead to a mold. In goes molten copper and tin. Any moisture and the whole shebang would explode, possibly killing someone.


As a kid in the 1950's I cast toy soldiers out of molten lead. Yeah, lead. It was a toy, with a little electric furnace and a ladle and molds. Never mind the poison fumes, we didn't know about that stuff then.

My favorite soldier was the one without a gun. He had a nice butt, too.



And, wow, what a hat!




Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo and Donatello.
About a minute. Don't bother.


Related: Butts #1, #2.


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