David (Bernini)

David twists at the peak of his effort, torso wound like a spring, brow furrowed and lips clamped tight as he takes aim with the loaded sling. Where Michelangelo's earlier David stands calm before the fight, Bernini carves the violent middle of the action, the figure coiled to hurl the stone - and implicates the viewer, who stands where the unseen Goliath must be. Made in his twenties for the Galleria Borghese, where it remains, it is a manifesto of Baroque sculpture: stone charged with energy, emotion, and a decisive moment caught mid-flight.