Mr. Leeds was standing in front of the screen, directing attention to it. The students of the Industrial Design and Visual Arts class turned their heads toward the images on the screen.
“It's important to learn how to draw things to scale,” Mr. Leeds was saying. “Even today.”
“Mr. Leeds,” Stan had his hand up.
“Yes, Stan?”
“We’ve all got computers now. Why do we have to learn how to scale things up and down by hand? I mean, this is industrial arts. Isn't everything done on machines?”
“Ah!” Mr. Leeds flipped to the next image. The students snickered at the image of the Venus de Milo statue. After a pause, Mr. Leeds flicked the remote again, to the Mona Lisa.
The class was made up of eleven guys and three girls. Most were interested in the class as a fulfillment to the high school fine arts requirement, and most were juniors or seniors. Mr. Leeds was known to be an easy grader. Besides, people did fun stuff in this class, like design billboards and ads for magazines, make pinhole cameras, play with actual film.
The next image had the boys cackling raucously and the girls shaking their heads at the boys’ immaturity. It was a photo of Michelangelo’s statue of David, from the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence.
“I’ve shown you works in different degrees of scale,” Mr. Leeds said. “They all look pretty good, don't they? Like they have the right human proportions?”
“This one looks kind of small in some parts!” someone shouted out. The class giggled.
Mr. Leeds looked toward the student.
“In fact,” he said, “David, by the artist Michelangelo, is scaled disproportionally.” They whooped in laughter. “Yeah, okay guys, settle down. Can someone tell me what seems off?”
“His package,” someone whispered.
“The old wand and ‘nads,” someone added.
“You mean the cocktail weenie and meatballs?” The class went into hysterics. People slapped their desks and high-fived each other.
“Come on, people. Really look,” Mr. Leeds redirected them.
They settled down and leaned in. Some squinted.
“He’s got gigantic hands,” someone finally volunteered.
“Jands!” another person shouted.
“Correct,” Mr. Leeds answered. “They’re anatomically accurate, but bigger than proportional hands. And David’s head—do you see how it's bigger, too? Besides the obvious beauty of the model, the hugeness of the head and hands was one of the first things Michelangelo’s critics noticed about the statue.” He paused. “Why do you think that is?”
They shuffled, looking to each other to see who would make the first guess. No one wanted to talk first. Some whispered and laughed amongst themselves, a naughty bark breaking out here and there. Mr. Leeds waited patiently.
“The stone,” a girl named Julie said, finally. “In his left hand.”
“Yes, Julie?” Mr. Leeds said. “Go on.”
YOU ARE READING
Galileo - l.s
Fanfiction"Dangerous? Not haute?" Harry mused. "Why not haute?" "'Course you're haute, babe," Louis smiled. He reached out to fix a stray curl that had dropped down onto Harry's forehead. Harry stared at him with a dimpled smile, and Louis reared his head bac...
