Considered both as a sculptor and a painter, Michelangelo's one
vehicle of expression was the human body. His works are "form-poems,"
through which he uttered his message to mankind. As he writes in one
of his own sonnets,

"Nor hath God deigned to show himself elsewhere
More clearly than in human forms sublime."

In his art, says the critic Symonds, "a well-shaped hand, or throat,
or head, a neck superbly poised on an athletic chest, the sway of the
trunk above the hips, the starting of the muscles on the flank, the
tendons of the ankle, the outline of the shoulder when the arm is
raised, the backward bending of the loins, the curves of a woman's
breast, the contours of a body careless in repose or strained for
action, were all words pregnant with profoundest meaning, whereby fit
utterance might be given to thoughts that raise man near to God."

Learning his first lessons in art of the Greeks, he soon possessed
himself of the great principles of classic sculpture. Then he boldly
struck out his own path; his was a spirit to lead, not to follow. With
the subtle Greek sense of line and form, he united an entirely new
motif. In contrast to the ideal of repose which was the leading canon
of the Greeks, his chosen ideal was one of action. Moreover, he
invariably fixed upon some decisive moment in the action he had to
represent, a moment which suggests both the one preceding and the one
following, and which gives us the whole story in epitome. Thus in the
David we see preparation, aim, and action. It was a far cry from the
elegant calm of the Greek god to the restless energy of this rugged
youth.