The statue of David in Florence is Michelangelo ’s best-known work of art. One that is considered to be immortal work of art.

In 1501 he took up the task to transform a block of marble into a statue of David. It was a long-standing project he had been asked to do. For three years he worked on the statue until it was unveiled in 1504. It became immediately clear that placing the statue somewhere up in the Florence Cathedral as originally planned was inconceivable. The statue was too powerful and beautiful, it needed to remain well visible.

Asked about his work and how difficult it had been, Michelangelo responded that the work had been easy. He only needed to remove the parts that weren’t David.

“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”

What Michelangelo describes there, is that the beauty of a person needs to be seen and can be made visible by removing the superfluous bits covering them up.

People don’t need to be fixed.

They may need help to remove anything that isn’t them to then become visible in all their beauty.

That is where the block of marble and the human are different. People decide if they want that help. People can’t be fixed.