I have been to the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence twice, and both times the most striking piece of art for me has been not the famous "David" by Michelangelo, but the same sculptor's unfinished slaves which line the corridor leading up to David. While the focus given to David (and Michelangelo's other works throughout the world) allows us to see the true beauty and genius in the artist's finished products, these rough-hewn and incomplete statues contain the most emotion and sense of the holy and sublime for me. The slaves in the pieces are thought to have been intended to be used as columns for a building, but were abandoned when Michelangelo received other commissions. They are seen as though just emerging from the rock, half stuck and half breaking free, with a beautiful sense of restrained movement. Michelangelo's ability to capture the dual sense of human strength and frailty, our joint independence and dependence, all within unfinished sculptures, is one of the most visible manifestations of the holy in visual art I can recall.
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