David and Atlas - "I Carved Him Until I Set Him Free"

Excerpts from “I Carved Until I Set Him Free”

By Lynne Perry Christofferson

A sizeable crowd of tourists already surrounded Michelangelo’s seventeen-foot masterpiece, and we joined them, slowly circling the sculpture to view it from every angle. The statue certainly lived up to all the hype. One could not help but appreciate the artistic genius of Michelangelo, who was only in his mid-twenties when he was commissioned to sculpt this piece.

After viewing and photographing David for several minutes, Brad and I returned to the hallway through which we had entered, inspecting other statues and paintings. There we found more of Michelangelo’s work, including four sculptures called The Prisoners. Their bulky forms were left rough and unfinished, chisel marks evident, each work portraying the partial figure of a man or youth trapped in marble. The figure that most captured my attention, and has stayed with me since, showed a man struggling to break free from the surrounding stone. His head has not emerged from the marble, requiring him to support a heavy weight, which threatens to crush him. This prisoner is called Atlas, after the Atlas of Greek mythology who was forced to bear the weight of the heavens on his shoulders.

I walked back and forth between David and The Prisoners, returning to the statue of David to view the flawless stone image–smooth and completely free of its original marble block. But I was repeatedly drawn back to the figure of Atlas. It was both fascinating and heart-wrenching to see his struggle, and I sensed the tension between the stone and the man–the apparent wrestle. I have since wondered why the rough, unfinished figure of Atlas affected me more than the world-famous sculpture of David. I’ve concluded it’s because I empathize with Atlas–I relate to his struggle as I fight daily to break free of the constraints of the natural man.

Once, when Michelangelo was asked to describe his sculpting process, he explained, “I saw the angel in the marble, and carved until I set him free.” To me, the David statue represents someone who has put himself into the hands of the Lord–the master sculptor–the only one able to free us from our natural man prison. Like Atlas, we may push and strain and writhe against the stone that holds us captive, but we alone can never fully free ourselves from the bondage of sin and weakness and addiction. “…they were in bondage, and none could deliver them except it were the Lord their God.” (Mosiah 24:21).

One of the most interesting facts about Michelangelo’s David is that the huge chunk of marble used for the statue had previously been rejected by other sculptors due to perceived flaws and impurities in the stone. We can take great comfort in knowing that Jesus Christ sees the angel within our marble–that He has a true vision of who we are and what we can become through the power of His atonement. His “work and glory” is to set us free.