Page of Swords and David

A while ago, I put the Tarot de Marseille Page of Swords next to a photograph of the David by Donatello (see attachment) and I was struck by the great resemblance! Do you guys think this has any significance at all? I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Spoon

jeunes valets femelles

Donatello (1386-1466)
David
Bronze, Height 158 cm, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence

Quoting:

Created by Donatello in Italy between 1425-30, it was the first
significant free standing life size nude bronze since antiquity.
It was condemned and never placed on a pillar as planned.

For centuries this work was explained away with various attempts
to cover the obvious Shemale characteristics. Boyishness?
Hardly boyish hips and abdomen! In fact, without the genitalia,
or if they had been covered by a garment, it would most certainly
be unanimously recognized as a female in all her glorious details.

With modern hormone therapy such Shemales are not rare,
but must surely have been quite rare through the ages.
We thank Donatello for creating such a glorious image for us.
Shemales have not generally been accepted in society and
we hope that this great work of art will help to change that.

http://www.utopiasprings.com/david.htm

spoonbender: It's odd that your David is looking to the left. I checked on numerous web-sites and he is always depicted as looking to the right, like here:

http://mapage.noos.fr/dardelf2/museum1/Donatello.jpg

But the posture is indeed very similar. As Donatello was very renowned even in his own life and times, his art would surely have impacted other art forms...

Thanks for this.

Nice, Spoonbender! I particularly like the hats in both figures. In Marseilles decks, both the Valet d’Épées and the Valet de Deniers wear similar hats, which look like simple straw hats; but the Valet d’Épées is armed, and it is unusual to see a guy raising a sword but wearing a peasant-like straw hat. Well, Donatello’s David causes the same feeling, at first. He wears a Tuscan shepherd’s hat, surrounded by a laurel wreath, the whole being very similar to a woman’s straw hat of Italian or French style. In the case of David, and although this feature just adds to the peculiar erotic nature of the statue (together with his androgynous nudity), we must remember he was, indeed, a shepherd, and not a warrior. In fact, he was a poet, to whom many biblical psalms are attributed. Every aspect of Donatello’s “scandalous” sculpture is in fact “historically” and symbolically accurate: the shepherd’s hat, the laurel leaves (symbols of poetry, symbols of the Medici family of Florence, symbols of triumph from the Olympic Games in ancient Greece), and his youth. Donatello preferred to create a non-heroic figure, evoking those young athletes from Greek or Roman classical sculpture, instead of a Christian warrior (like Michelangelo’s latter David). It is interesting to see our Valet at this light: a young boy with a straw hat, who accidentally found himself in possession of a sword... and what will he do with it? The sword does not really belong to him, does it? It didn’t belong to David, either. David did not fight Goliath with a sword. King Saul gave him full armour, but he refused it, and went forth to meet Goliath dressed as usual, like a simple shepherd, armed only with a slingshot and a staff. He only needed a sword latter, in order to cut Goliath’s head.

By the way, Donatello’s David is indeed looking to the right, not to the left.